E 381 
.C763 
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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % 

I UNJTED STATES OF AlVlERJCA. § 



IS 
« 



I 

I 

I 



J 



LETTER 

TO 

HIS COUNTRYMEN, 

BY 

J. FENIMORE-COOPER. 



LETTER 



TO 

HIS COUNTRYMEN, 

BY 

J/ FENIMORE-COOPER, 

AUTHOR OF THE " PILOT," " BRAVO," " HEADSMAN," ETC., ETC. 
1^ 




NEW YORK : 
PRINTED: JOHN WILEY. 

LONDON : 

REPRINTED: JOHN MILLER, 

13, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 



1834. 



Harjette & Savill, Printers, 
107, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross. 



TO THE PUBLIC. 



The private citizen who comes before the world with matter 
^ relating to himself, is bound to show a better reason for the mea- 
sure than the voluntary impulses of self-love. In my own case, 
it might, perhaps, appear a sufficient excuse for the step now 
taken, that I am acting chiefly on the defensive ; that the editors 
of several of the public journals have greatly exceeded their 
legitimate functions, by animadverting on my motives and private 
affairs ; and that assertions, opinions, and acts, have been openly 
attributed to me, that I have never uttered, entertained, or done. 
When an individual is thus dragged into notice, the right of 
self-vindication would seem to depend on a principle of natural 
justice ; and yet, if I know the springs of my own conduct, I 
am less influenced by any personal considerations in what I am 
now doing, than by a wish to check a practice that has already 
existed too long among us ; which appears to me to be on the 
increase ; and which, while it is degrading to the character, if 
persisted in, may become dangerous to the institutions of this 
country. 

The practice of quoting the opinions of foreign nations, by 
way of helping to make up its own estimate of the degree of 
merit that belongs to its public men, is, I believe, a custom peculiar 
to America. That our colonial origin, and provincial habits, 
should have given rise to such a usage, is sufficiently natural ; 
that journals which have a poverty of original matter, should 
have recourse to that which can be obtained, not only gratuitously, 
but by an extraordinary convention, without loss of reputation, 
and without even the necessity of a translation, need be no mys- 
tery ; but the readiness with which the practice can be accounted 

B 



2 



for, will not, I think, prove its justification, if it can be shown 
that it is destructive of those sentiments of self-respect, and of 
that manliness and independence of thought, that are necessary 
to render a people great, or a nation respectable. Questions 
have now arisen between a portion of the press and myself, which 
give me more authority to speak in the matter than might belong 
to one whose name had not been so freely used ; and it is my 
intention, while I endeavour to do myself justice, to make an 
effort to arrest the custom to which there is allusion, and which, 
should it continue to prevail, must render every American more 
or less subject to the views of those who are hostile to the pros- 
perity, the character, and the power of his native land. 

I am fully aware that every man must prepare himself to 
meet the narrowest constructions on his motives, when he as- 
sumes an office like this I have here undertaken ; but I shall not 
complain, provided the opinion of the public receive a healthful 
impulse ; while, at the same time, I shall not neglect the proper 
means to support my argument, by showing, as far as circum- 
stances will permit, that I come to the discussion with clean 
hands. These constructions might have been obviated by having 
recourse to an anonymous publication, or by engaging some 
friendly pen to speak for me ; but I have preferred the simpler, 
and, as I think, more manly course, of appearing in my own 
behalf. The nature of the proof I propose to offer, will compel 
me to mention myself oftener than I could wish, were not 
evidence of this nature less liable to be questioned than that 
which comes from sources more indirect. 1 shall not shrink 
from my intention, therefore, on this account, while there is a 
hope that good may come of it. In vindicating myself, it will 
be necessary to reply to many attacks, without always quoting 
the papers in which they have appeared, which would swell this 
letter to an unreasonable size, and that, too, on a part of the 
subject that I could wish to treat as briefly as possible; but the 
reader is assured, that nothing of a direct personal nature will 
be said, that has not its warranty in some obvious allusion, in- 
sinuation, or open charge, in some one of the many journals of this 
country. In three instances, (those of the " New- York Ameri- 
can," the " New- York Courier & Enquirer," and the " New- York 



3 



Commercial Advertiser,") it is my intention to answer tlie state- 
ments separately ; distinctly marking the points at issue between 
each journal and myself, as is due to all the parties concerned. 

I shall now proceed to execute the purpose of this letter, as 
briefly as the circumstances will allow, again begging the reader 
to remember that every statement which relates especially to 
myself, is either in reply to some unequivocal allegation to the con- 
trary that is to be found in the public prints, or has a direct 
reference to the practice which it is so desirable to destroy. 

First, then, I will show, that I come to this discussion with 
clean hands. At no period of my life have I had any connexion 
with any review, notice, or critique of any sort, that has appeared 
for or against me as a writer. With a single, and a very im- 
material exception, I do not know to this hour, who are the 
authors of any favourable notice, biography, or other com- 
mentary, that has appeared on myself, or on any thing I have 
published; and in the case of the exception, I was made ac- 
quainted with the name of the writer after the notice was wxitten. 
As respects Europe, so far from having used any midue means 
to procure reviews, criticisms, or puffs, I am ignorant of the 
names of the writers of every thing of this sort that lias appeared 
which has been in my favour ; have probably not even read a 
dozen of these notices, with the exception of such as were to be 
found in the daily prints, since I have been absent ; have refused 
numerous applications from the editors of periodicals, to send 
them critiques and copies of the books I had written ; and, when- 
ever it could be done, without obvious impropriety, have uni- 
formly declined making the acquaintance of those who were 
known to be connected with what are called critical publications. 
In several instances, the very reviews which have made direct 
applications to me for favourable notices, have turned against me 
when it was understood that the request would not be complied 
with.*" In short, I affirm that every report or asseveration that 



* I am just informed by a friend, that he was lately applied to, by tlie editor of 
a literary journal in this city, to write a favourable notice of " The Headsman ;" 
that he declined ; and that an unfavourable one soon after appeared in tlie same 
publication ! 

B 2 



4 



any review has been written in Europe, or anywhere else, by 
my connivance, or even with my knowledge, to produce an im- 
pression on the public mind at home, or with any other view, 
is founded in error or in malice. For a short time, I was a volun- 
tary contributor of a periodical, that was edited by an old mess- 
mate, (Col. Gardner, the present Deputy Postmaster-General,) 
and I think he will remember the fact, that, when he declared 
his intention to obtain a favourable notice of " The Pioneers," 
I objected to it, on the ground of its being painful to me to see 
critiques of this kind in a publication with which I was con- 
nected, and that my objection prevailed. 

I have been repeatedly and coarsely accused of writing for 
money, and exaggerated accounts of my receipts have been pa- 
raded before the public, with views that it is not easy to mistake. 
That I have taken the just compensation of my labours, like 
other men, is true ; nor do I see that he who passes a year in 
the preparation of a work, is not just as much entitled to the 
fruits of his industry, as he who throws off his crude opinions 
to-day, with the strong probability that on the morrow circum- 
stances will compel him to admit that he was mistaken. Of this 
accusation, it is not my intention to say much, for I feel it is 
conceding a sacred private right to say any thing ; but as it has 
been frequently pressed into notice by my enemies, I will add, 
that I never asked nor received a dollar for any thing I have 
written, except for the tales and the letters on America ; that I 
have always refused to sacrifice a principle to gain, though often 
urgently entreated to respect the prejudices of foreign nations, 
with this very view ; and that all the reports of the sums I have 
been soliciting and obtaining in France, Germany, and other 
countries, are either wholly untrue, or extravagant and absurd 
exaggerations. 

I have been accused of undue meddling with the affairs of 
other nations. On this head it will be necessary to answer more 
at length, as the accusation takes two forms ; one which charges 
me with entering impertinently into a controversy with the 
French government, and the other resting on the political ten- 
dency of some of the tales. 

As respects the first, I shall say but little here, for I hope to 



5 



be able to give the history of that controversy in a form less 
perishable than this letter. 

In 1828, after a residence of two years in Europe, and when 
there had been sufficient opportunity to observe the disfavour 
with which the American character is viewed by nearly all 
classes of Europeans, I published a work on this country, whose 
object was to repel some of the hostile opinions of the other 
hemisphere, and to turn the tables on those who, at that time, 
most derided and calumniated us. This work was necessarily 
statistical in some of its features. In 1831, or about a year 
after the late revolution in France, there appeared at Paris, in 
a publication called La Revue Britannique^ (the British Review, 
and this in France, be it remembered !) an article on the United 
States, which affected to prove that the cost of government in 
this country was greater than it was in France, or indeed in 
nearly every other country ; and that a republic, in the nature 
of things, must be a more expensive form of government than 
a monarchy. This article, as has been stated, appeared in a 
review with a foreign title, at a moment when the French govern- 
ment professed great liberality, and just after the King of the 
French (taking the papers for authority) had spoken of the go- 
vernment of the United States as " the model government." 
There was no visible reason for beheving that the French minis- 
try had any connection with the review, and, although the fact 
might be and was suspected, the public had a perfect right, under 
all the laws of courtesy and usage, to assume exactly the con- 
trary. In short, this dissertation of the Revue Britannique ap- 
peared, like any other similar dissertation, to be purely editorial, 
and it was clearly within the usual privileges of an author, whose 
positions it denied, as it denied those advanced in the work of 
mine just mentioned, to justify what he had already said. In 
addition to this peculiar privilege, I had that, in common with 
every citizen of the country whose facts were audaciously mu- 
tilated and perverted, of setting the world right in the affair, if 
I saw proper. Such a course was not forbidden by either the 
laws of France, any apparent connection between the review and 
the government, or the " reserve usually imposed on foreigners." 
I could cite fifty cases in which the natives of countries attacked 



6 



have practised this right, from Baretti down to a countryman 
of our own, who has just exercised it in England. I did not 
exercise it. The article was pointed out to me ; 1 was told that 
it was injuring the cause of free institutions ; that it was depriving 
America of nearly the only merit Europe had hitherto conceded to 
her ; and that I might do well to answer it. After a time. Gen, 
Lafayette called my attention to the same subject, and, without 
at all adverting to any personal interest he had in its investiga- 
tion, pressed me to reply. I respectfully, but firmly, declined. I 
had seen so much of the ignorance of Europe in relation to 
ourselves, understood so thoroughly the design and bad faith 
on w^liich it w^as bottomed, and so well knew the hopelessness of 
correcting the evil, (for it is a great evil, so far as the feelings, 
character, and interests of every American are concerned,) that 
I felt no disposition to undertake the task. In addition to these 
general motives, I had the particular one of private interest. 
The vindication of the country already published, had occasioned 
a hea^y pecuniary loss ; it had even lost me the favour of a large 
party at home. I had many demands on my limited means, and 
w-as unable to make further sacrifices of this nature, to any 
abstract notions of patriotism or of truth. It was some months 
after the appearance of the review, that I was told the principal 
object of the article in question. It w^as to injure Gen. Lafayette. 
He had been stating, for forty years, that the American govern- 
ment w^as the cheapest known; and should the mis-statements 
and sophistry of the Revue Britannique go uncontradicted, he 
w^ould stand convicted before the French people of gross igno- 
rance or of wilful fraud — or, to quote the language that was 
subsequently used by the " Moniteur," of an " illusion or a lie." 
This fact presented the aflPair in an entirely new aspect. I de- 
termined to furnish the answer that w^as requested. Whatever 
may be the opinion of my countrymen on this point, it appeared 
to me that a man who stood in the relation which Gen. Lafayette 
occupied in respect to every American, ought not to be left to say 
that, w^hen pressed upon hardest by his enemies, he had applied 
to a citizen of the country he had so faithfully served, and that, 
under the circumstances I have named, he had been denied what 
is due to even a criminal — the benefit of the truth. The 



7 



" American " has lately insinuated that I am a " professed 
patriot." As I have never solicited nor received the usual rewards 
of professions of this nature, to me it seems that my conduct 
might have been referred to a simple and creditable sentiment 
of gratitude. Had I not been placed on the defensive, (so 
placed, I make no doubt, by designing men, w^ho have felt my 
course to be a reproach to their own,) the world would never 
have been troubled with these details. The letter which I wrote 
on the matter in dispute was given to Gen. Lafayette to secure 
my own self-approbation, and not to be made a merit of before 
the American people, of whom I never have, and do not now, 
ask more than a very negative justice. It was translated through 
the instrumentality of Gen. Lafayette, and, in this manner, it 
came before the French nation. I say it with regret, but I say 
it with a deep conviction of its truth, that I believe this to be the 
only country in the world in which a citizen would be placed on 
trial, for having refuted gross and unquestionable mis-statements 
of the fair action of its own system, without any reference to the 
peculiar character that was given to this controversy by the 
appeal and situation of Gen. Lafayette. 

My letter, and one of General Bernard which accompanied 
it, produced replies, containing fresh mis-statements, mingled 
with great scurrility on the character, habits, and pursuits of 
the people of the United States. It was now a duty that I 
owed to myself, to the truth, and to all concerned, to answer. 
I did so in a short series of letters that was published in the 
" National." Throughout the whole discussion, care was had, 
on my part, to abstain from toucliing on the cost of government 
in France, though the comparison would have been perfectly 
justifiable, when the manner in which it was provoked is brought 
into account. A few of my adversaries' contradictions were 
ridiculed, but, with a slight exception of this sort, all I said had 
a strict reference to ourselves. 

The dates of this controversy have some connection with that 
which is to follow. My first letter bears date Nov. 25di, 1831, 
and the last. May 3rd, 1832. The controversy on my part, 
however, woidd have ended in the commencement of Marcli, 
but for a circumstance it may be well to name. After the ap- 



8 



pearance of my original letter, M. Frangois Delassert, the vice- 
president of the Chamber of Deputies, published a letter from 
IVIr. Leavitt Harris, of New-Jersey, who took grounds the very 
reverse of my own, who denied most of my facts, and who wrote 
virtually on the side of the Revue Britannique. To tliis letter 
I repHed on the 3rd of May, as stated. That I did not prolong the 
discussion unnecessarily will, I think, be admitted, when the 
reader remembers, that Mr. Harris is the gentleman who has 
since been appointed to fill the office of Charge d' affaires at the 
court of France. 

Having briefly stated an outline of the facts, in reference to 
the controversy on the cost of government, I proceed to the 
political tendency of the book that appeared about the same time, 
and to the circumstances accompanying its publication, so far as 
they have any connection with France. 

The work in question is called the " Bravo." Its outline was 
imairined durinor a short residence at Venice, several months 
previously to the occurrence of the late French revolution. I 
had had abundant occasion to observe that the great political 
contest of the age was not, as is usually pretended, between the 
two antagonist principles of monarchy and democracy, but, in 
reahty, between those who, under the shallow pretence of limiting 
power to the elite of society, were contending for exclusive ad- 
vantages at the expense of the mass of their fellow creatures. 
The monarchical principle, except as it is fraudently maintained 
as a cover to the designs of the aristocrats, its greatest enemies, 
is virtually extinct in Clu'istendom — having been supplanted by 
the combinations of those who affect to uphold it with a view to 
their own protection. Nicholas may still send a prince to the 
mines, but even Nicholas keeps not only his crown, but his head, 
at the pleasm'e of the body of his aristocracy. This result is in- 
evitable in an age when the nobles, no longer shut up in theii' holds 
and occupied in warring against each other, meet amicably to- 
gether, and bring the weight of their united intelligence and com- 
mon interests to bear upon the authority of the despot. The excep- 
tions to such consequences arise only from brilliant and long con- 
tinued military successes, great ignorance in the nobles themselves, 
or when the democratical principle has attained tlie ascendency. 



9 



With these views of what was enacting around me in Europe, 
and with the painful con\'iction that many of my own country- 
men were influenced by the fallacy that nations could be governed 
by an hresponsible minority, without invohing a train of neai'ly 
intolerable abuses, I determined to attempt a series of tales, 
in which American opmion should be brought to bear on Eu- 
ropean facts. With this design the Bravo" was written, Venice 
being its scene, and her polit}- its subject. 

I had it in view to exliibit the action of a narrow and exclu- 
sive system, by a simple and natmral exposm-e of its influence on 
the familiar interests of hfe. The object was not to be attained 
by an essay, or a commentary, but by one of those popular 
pictures which find their way into every hbraiy, and which, 
whilst they have attractions for the feeblest intellects, are not 
often rejected by the strongest. The nature of the work limited 
the writer as to time and place, both of which, -with then proper 
accessories, were to be so far respected as to preserve a verishniK- 
tude to received facts, in order that the illusion of the tale should 
not be destroyed. The moral was to be inferred from the events, 
and it was to be enforced by the coimnon sympathies of our 
nature. With these means, and under these lunitations, then, 
the object was to lay bare the vTongs that are endured by the 
weak, when power is the exclusive property of the strong; 
the tendency of all exclusion to heartlessness ; the nresponsible 
and ruthless movement of an aristocracy ; the manner in wliich 
the selfish and wicked profit by its facilities, and in which even 
the good become the passive instriunents of its soulless power. 
In short, I had undertaken to c^ive the reader some idea of the 
action of a govenmient, which, to use the lanoriiaore of the book 
itself, had neither, " the high personal responsibflit}^ that some- 
times tempers despotism by the qualities of the chief, nor the 
himian impulses of a popular rule." 

In effecting such an object, and with the materials named, the 
government of Venice, strictly speaking, became the hero of the 
tale. Still it was necessary to have human agents. The reqimed 
number were imagined, cai'e being had to respect the customs 
and pecuharities of the age. and of the par ticular locahty of the 
subject. Little need be said of the mere machinery of such a 



10 



plan, as the oflPence, if offence there be, must exist in the main 
desiixn. One of those ruthless state maxims which have been ex- 
posed by Comte Daru, in his history of Venice, furnished the 
leading idea of the minor plot, or the narrative. According to 
this maxim, the state was directed to use any fit subject, by 
playing on his natm'al affections, and by causing him to act as a 
spy, assassin, or other desperate agent of the government, under 
a promise of extending favours to some near relative . w^ho might 
happen to be wdthin the grasp of the law. As the main object of 
the work was to show the manner in which institutions that are 
professedly created to prevent violence and wi'ongs,/ibecome 
themselves, when perverted from their legitimate destination, the 
fearful instruments of injustice, a better illustration could not 
have been wished than was furnished by the application of this 
rule. A pious son assumes the character of a Bravo, in the hope 
of obtaining the liberation of a father who had been falsely 
accused ; and whilst the former is blasting his own character and 
hopes, mider the delusion, and the latter is permitted to waste 
away his Hfe in prison, forgotten, or only remembered as a means 
of working on the sensibilities of his child, the state itself, through 
agents w^hose feelings have become blunted by practice, is seen 
forgetful of its solemn duties, intent alone on perpetuating its 
schemes of self-protection. This idea was enlarged upon in dif- 
ferent ways. An honest fisherman is represented as struggling 
for the release of a grandson, who had been impressed for the 
galleys, while the dissolute descendant of one of the inquisitors 
works his evil under favour of his rank. A noble, who claims an 
inheritance ; an heii*ess ; watermen ; females of low condition, 
and servants, are shown as contributing in various ways to the 
policy of the soulless state. On every side there exists corruption 
and a ruthless action. That some of the faces of this picture 
were peculiar to the Venetian polity, and to an age different 
from our own, is true : this much was necessary to the illusion of 
the tale ; but it was beheved that there remained enough of that 
which is eternal, to supply the moral. 

Such was the " Bravo," in intention at least. I confess I see 
nothing in its design of which an American need be ashamed. 
I had not been cooped up in a ward of New- York, regarding 



n 



things only on one side, and working myself into a fever on the 
subject of the imminent danger that impended over this great 
republic, by the machinations of a few " working-men," dreaming 
of Agrarian laws, and meditating on the neglected excellencies of 
my own character and acquirements on the one hand, and on the 
unmerited promotion of some neighbour, who spelt constitution 
with a ^ on the other ; but it had been my employment for year's 
to visit nations, and to endeavour to glean some general infer- 
ences from the comparisons that naturally suggested themselves. I 
knew that there existed at home a large party of doctrinaires, 
composed of men of very fair intentions, but of very limited means 
of observation, who fancied excellencies under other systems, much 
as the ultra-liberals of Europe fancy perfection under our own ; 
and, while I knew what I was doing was no more than one nail 
driven into an edifice that required a million, I thought it might 
be well enough to show the world that there was a writer among 
ourselves of some vogue in Europe, who believed that the 
American system was founded on just and durable principles. 
The book was thoroughly American in all that belonged to it. 
The most grateful compliment I have ever received, was paid to 
me, unwittingly enough I believe, by a hostile English review, in 
reference to this very work. It said, in substance, that while 
Byron had seen in Venice, her palaces, her renown, and 
" England's glory" ( ! ) the author of the Bravo had seen only 
her populace and her prisons. I take it, this is just the difference 
that would be found, in such a case, between a right-thinking and 
a wrong-thinking man. Whether Lord Byron merited such a 
reproof, or not, I do not pretend to know — but I was grateful for 
the compliment. 

I believe no sane man will deny the right of an American to pro- 
duce such a work as the " Bravo," considered purely in reference 
to its plan. But some, who will admit this, may be disposed to 
say that a book of such a nature should not have been published 
in France, at that particular moment. The distinction taken by 
these thin-skinned moralists (most of whom are liberal enough to 
all who write in honour of exclusion*) rests on a subterfuge. 



* Compare the language of these admirers of exclusive privileges as respects me, 
and as respects Mr. G. Morris. The latter was an accredited agent of the United 



12 



Had the " Bravo" been written and published among them oiintains 
of Otsego, it would have been translated and republished at Paris, 
without any agency of mine. All that I had written, previously 
to arriving in Europe, was reprinted in this way; and the activity 
of the press is much too great at present to leave any doubt on 
this head. I wrote in my own language, and had I caused an 
English edition to^ be printed at Paris, it would have been a sealed 
book to the French. There is no doubt that the tendency of the 
" Bravo" is directly opposed to iheintentions of the French Govern- 
ment party, and it has so been treated by wi'iters of that country 
both for and against ; but it is by no means so clear that it is 
opposed to their professions. A stranger is bound to respect the 
laws and institutions of the country in which he may happen to 
be, but I do not know that he is obliged to dive into the secret 
and fraudulent intentions of its rulers. Let this be as it may, I 
stand acquitted of blame on any and all of these subtleties, for I 
did not cause the "Bravo" to be published in France at all. Even 
the sheets for the translation were obtained from another country 
(I believe the work was actually translated in England), and the 
reprints in English which did appear were surreptitious editions, 
that an author without a copyright could not prevent. I did not 
know of their existence until they had been before the world 
several weeks. 

Such is the history of the intention and of the publication of 
the " Bravo," so far as either is connected with the matter at issue. 
I do not know that its author had any gi'eat reason to be dissatis- 
fied with its reception. The great mass of readers viewed it 
simply as a picturesque sketch of scenes and incidents, and in this 
respect it seems to have had sufficient interest to become tolerably 
popular. The publisher of the translation told me, shortly after 
it appeared, that it fared better than most of the works from the 



States, and was recalled at the complaint of the French Government of that day, 
because he was believed to favour aristocracy! The London " Times," of Sept. 13, 
1833, in speaking of the representatives of the United States, in Europe, says — 
" They are very generally imbued with aristocratical sentiments, — if possible, more 
marked than those of the representatives of the European monarchies with whom 
they associate." Is this the character an American agent ought to earn abroad? 



13 



same pen. Tliere were a few, however, who were accnstomed to 
separate principles from facts. Some of these closer readers 
detected the intention of the book, and they were not slow in 
pointing it out. " Figaro," without exception the wittiest journal 
in France, and one that was especially devoted to attacks on the 
juste milieu, contrary to its usual course, gave an especial article 
to the book, laying considerable stress on its political tendency. 
Praise fi'om" Figaro," on such a topic, almost inevitably drew cen- 
sure from the other party, and from this time it became a fashion 
with a set to undervalue the work. I have a double purpose in 
dwelling on the reception of this book, and I hope the reader 
will overlook the weakness of an author if I say a little more« 
There were several pictures from its scenes at the French and 
English exliibitions of 1833; an opera has been written from it 
for the Academic de Musique, * at Paris ; another for the Italian 
opera, at the same place ; and when in London, Mr. Kenny told 
me he was writing an English opera on the same subject for Drury 
Lane. I believe there have also been several melo-dramas in 
different languages. The critical notices of the work, as I am 
told, — for my own knowledge on this head is very limited, — have 
been rather favourable than otherwise. One of them, in parti- 
cular, was so flattering, that I shall introduce it nearly entire, 
hoping its brevity will be its excuse : — 

"These volumes, we think, will add to his (Mr. Cooper's) fame; 
for though there is some careless writing, some repetitions, the effect 
of too much haste, and — for a novel — somewhat too much, perhaps, 
of political disquisition, there are touches of a master throughout. Of 
the females introduced, the gaoler's daughter is our heroine." [This, 
by the way, is a discovery, she being expressly called the heroine in 
the book !] " Her character is beautifully conceived and sustained; 
and the answer she gives to the venerable Carmelite, when he asks if 
she would not be afraid to plead before the Doge in behalf of her 
lover, is in the spirit, and worthy of the high-souled and conscientious 
Jeanie Deans. The fine old fisherman, Antonio, and the Bravo him- 
self, are both strongly drawn. Venice is absolutely presented to the 
eye in the minute and picturesque descriptions of its canals, palaces. 



* I do not know that this opera was accepted ; I think it probable it was, for 
obvious reasons, refused. I was told, however, that the one for the Italian Opera had 
been received. 



14 



and squares ; while its sports are admirably illustrated by the gorgeous 
ceremonial of the nuptials of the Adriatic, and the subsequent spirit- 
stirring race of the gondolas. But we are descanting on what all have 
read, or will read, and therefore forbear." 

I had the more satisfaction in this short notice, because it bears 
on its face evidence of good faith, and because it appeared as 
editorial in the " New- York American"* of December 3, 1831 ; a 
journal whose principal editor has justly obtained a respectable 
reputation for taste in literature. 

As so much has been said of the " Bravo," this would seem to be 
a proper place to introduce what I have to add in reply to the 
three journals specifically named, as the subject is intimately con- 
nected with the history of that work. The "American" shall first 
occupy our attention. In answering this journal, I wish it to be 
understood that I decline all direct controversy with its correspon- 
dent who styles himself " Cassio." The tone of that person pre- 
cludes him from the right to expect any reply, as a controversialist ; 
and as a critic, I think the reader will agree with me, in believing 
that he is scarcely entitled to occupy our attention beyond the 
point which is necessary to prove my case. 

The true matter at issue between the "American" and myself is, 
whether a certain notice of the " Bravo," which appeared in that 
paper, was, what it professed to be, of American manufacture, or 
of foreign ; and if the former, how far I had affirmed that it was 
not. I will now give a short history of the transaction. 

It was, I believe, near the close of June, 1832, that Mr. Morse, 
the well known artist, (whose name is used with his own con- 
sent,) directed my attention to a critique on the " Bravo," in the 
columns of the " New- York American." Mr. Morse had read this 
pretended criticism, and while he could not forbear laughing at 
its exaggeration, he appeared to be provoked that a respectable 
journal at home should admit so senseless a tirade against an 
absent countryman, and one, too, who had just been seriously 



* The same paper, for June 24, 1833, has the following : — Of his novels written 
in Europe, we do not now recollect one that does not, and should not impair his 
American fame." Of course, the " American fame" mentioned here ought not to 
be confounded with the " fame" of the American. 



15 



engaged in defending the common character of our common 
country, and this under circumstances of gravity that were known 
to him, although they might not have been so well understood by 
others. I must say, that I think the indignation expressed by 
this gentleman was creditable to him, both as a man and as an 
American. The warmth of my friend induced me to examine 
the article more closely that probably would have been done had 
it fallen under my eye in the ordinary way. I gave it as my 
opinion, that this article was certainly written at Paris, (on its 
face it appeared, like any other communication, to have been 
written at home,) and that it most probably was a translation 
from the French or had been written in English by some one 
who thought in the former language. Some of the reasons for 
this opinion shall be given. They are divided into those which 
depended on the disposition of the government party in France 
towards me, and on the internal evidence that existed in the 
article itself. 

As respects the disposition of the government party towards 
myself, I had abundant proof* " Figaro," the journal which had so 
warmly extolled the " Bravo," was soon after bought up by the 
government ; it of course changed its tone, and, among others, I 
was openly assailed in it, by name. An individual, filling a high 
official station, and who I have always believed spoke from authority, 
assured me that the part I had taken in the Finance Controversy 
would not be soon, to use his own words, " forgotten nor for- 
given." During this controversy, the Revue Britannique more 
than once manifested a desire to frighten me from the field, by 
displaying its critical power, sometimes flattering and sometimes 
squibbing, according to the tactics of the moment. That very 
publication had previously furnished unequivocal evidence of the '^•^ 
sort of faith that controls its decisions, by a long article on 
myself, which professed to be a translation from an English 
periodical. In this pretended translation, whole sentences were 
omitted or interpolated, evidently to suit the political views of its 
editor. In addition to this, I was familiar with the audacity and 
indifference to truth with which these matters are usually con- 
ducted in that quarter of the world. 

The internal evidence on which I believed the critique in the 



16 



"American" to be virtually Frencli, was not trifling. Tliat it came 
from France, was to me beyond dispute ; it was unquestionably 
wTitten in bad faith ; it abounded in faults of idiom and of in'am- 
mar; most of the little reasoning it pretended to, was peculiarly 
French; it had an involved and obscure style, hke that which 
characterizes insincere witing, and it violated, in an essential 
point, a received usage of English composition. 

That it came from France, was evident enough to me at a 
glance. The critique contains a fling at these words in the title- 
page of the book — viz., " The Bravo, a Venetian story.'* Now, 
the words, " a Venetian story," form no part of the true title of 
the work. They are an unauthorized interpolation of the 
European booksellers, and are not to be found in the American, 
or the only authentic edition. Besides this fact, which was almost 
the first thing that caught my attention, the edition of M. Baudry, 
Paris, is quoted by name. This edition is spurious, and abounds 
with blunders, havmg been, in part, printed from uncorrected 
sheets, obtained fi'om another country. With this proof, I 
could not hesitate to believe that the article was produced at 
Paris, as the alternative was to suppose that a wi'iter at home had 
taken the bold measure of hunting up a spurious and foreign 
edition of an American book, in order to attack it through pecu- 
liarities that did not exist in the original. It has since been 
conceded that the communication was actually written at Paris, 
although its writer is said to be an American. 

Under the circumstances of the case, when the fact was suffi- 
ciently established, that a critique on an American book, which 
appeared in an American journal, and as an American produc- 
tion, came in truth from a country where the writer of the work 
was openly assailed for party purposes, it created a strong pre- 
sumption of foul play. But for this fact, I should have probably 
thrown the paper aside, consigning it to forgetfulness, along 
with a hundred more similar tirades that some of my countrymen 
have had the kindness to send to me, during my absence from 
home; or, at least, some who j)retend to be my countrymen, 
although evidence is fast accumulating to show that a good many 
of them are foreigners, who have taken this, among other steps, 
to show their gratitude for the unusual liberality that is extended 



17 



to them in this country. As the fact was at least curious, could it 
be proved, that the system of manufacturing ideas, by which to 
judge our literature, was to be carried on by a foreign people, 
in this open manner, (that it had been done indirectly for a 
long time, I was fully aware,) I thought the matter merited an 
examination. 

The style of the critique struck me as having the involution of 
another language, and the vagueness of insincere writing. Let 
its first two sentences speak for themselves : — " We believe that, 
in conformity with all usage, it is the business of a critic to dis- 
close to the world the merits or defects of authors ; and, of 
consequence, his duty consists, ostensibly at least, in imparting 
information. Perhaps we shall forfeit all claim to the appella- 
tion (?) by commencing on a different plan, but even at that 
(Anglice, this) risk, we can adopt no other method of discussing 
the ' Bravo,' than by first inquiring ' what it's all about?' &c. 
&c. &c." — I believe I may safely say, that the whole article is 
written in the same lively, perspicuous, and logical manner, and 
with very much the same grammatical purity. 

It abounds with feults of idiom and of grammar. The sen- 
tences just quoted furnish proofs of what I say. To what does 

appellation" properly refer ? " That risk" should clearly have 
been " this risk," to be idiomatic, and the words contained be- 
tween -inverted commas are a downright gallicism, or they are 
downright nonsense. " What it's all about ?" as a mere quotation, 
is nonsense. Words might as well be quoted from a dictionary. 
Tlie marks of quotation, therefore, must be intended to give the 
expression in a colloquial form; this is undeniably proved by 
their use in connection with the note of interrogation ; and 

what it's all about ?" as a speech, means, what it is all about ?" 
and this is very much as a Frenchman would be apt to ask the 
question. Any school-boy will see that it ought to have been 
written " what is't all about ?" to be English. I have not cited 
these faults because they are the most obvious, but simply because 
the sentence was already before the reader, and because it was the 
first that offered. On this head it would be easy to write pages. 
" No whit superior," for instance, is some such English as if one 
should say " no bit taller." But I will quote one odier sen- 

c 



18 



tence : — " We cannot call them'' (he is speaking of a man and 
a woman) hero nor heroine, for they liave no claim to the dis- 
tinction. These two worthies, who have nothing on earth to 
recommend themselves^'' &c. &c. The fault of idiom, that of 
saying " recommend themselves" for " recommend them," struck 
me as an awkward translation of " se recommander." It is 
unnecessary to point out the confusion in the grammar. 

The violation of a usage of our language is this. In English, 
under a fiction of plurality of writers, it is permitted to say loe^ 
when the writer alludes to himself; but it becomes obviously 
absurd, when it is expressly stated that there is but one writer. 
The critique is signed " Gassio ;" and yet his communication is 
written in the first person plural. We, as applied to Cassio, and 
the Cassio of Shakspeare too, is a palpable absurdity. Now there 
prevails among the French critics, a custom of annexing to their 
communications an initial, or even the name of the critic, and 
it struck me, on seeing the obvious fault just alluded to, that the 
translator, finding the usual name at the foot of his original, and 
knowing it would not do to publish it, had fancied he showed his 
knowledge of English, by supplying its place with that of one of 
Shakspeare's characters. These peculiarities might certamly 
have passed as slovenly composition under other cuxumstances, 
although a critic who is so vulnerable makes but an indifferent 
figure at fault-finding ; but under those which I have named, they 
became additional evidence of the fact that was suspected. 

The reasoning of the critique is French. It has a flavour of 
the academic strut, very strangely mystified, it is true, by the 
manner in which it is presented. Thus, the writer thinks, or 
affects to think, that the leading idea of the work is taken from a 
drama called " Abaellino and on this point he thus expresses 
himself : " In our humble belief, no merit and no praise can 
belong to a work which, in its principal design, is borrowed from 
the labours of another's pen." There is a saying of an author of 
approved wisdom, which might have taught the correspondent of 
the " American" a little moderation on this head. Solomon tells 
us, " that the thing that hath been, is that which shall be, and 
that which is done, is that which shall be done ; and there is no 
new thing under the sun." There is about as much resemblance 



19 



in motive, in character, in incident, and in all other points that 
form the true distinctions in cases of this sort, between Abaellino 
and Jacopo, as there is between the Lord Mortimer of an old- 
fashioned novel, and Tom Jones ; but this is not the point at 
issue. It has been admitted, that so much of the leading idea of 
the tale as is connected with Jacopo, or the Bravo, is taken from 
the history of Monsieur Daru, and on this score there is no pre- 
tension to originality. Was I to think, however, after the exam- 
ples of Milton, Shakspeare, Byron, Scott, and nearly every great 
name of the language, that a romance confessedly taken from a 
drama, or a di'ama from a romance, was in consequence to be 
hopelessly damned ! There really appeared to me a temerity of 
assertion in this charge that could not belong to any one familiar 
with the annals of English literature. I set it down as the opinion 
of a Frenchman, who knew just enough of English to find faul 
with Shakspeare, and to murder the language. I had no inten- 
tion of commenting on the merits of Cassio as a critic, but as the 
editor of the " American" has claimed him for a favourite corres- 
pondent, I will give another touch of his quality, chiefly for the 
purpose of making use of the circumstance in proving the bad 
faith with which the article is written, althougb the occasion will 
be incidentally improved, in order to show the editor of the 

American" what a figure his dwarf makes upon stilts. 

It has been said that, in carrying out the principal design of 
the " Bravo," a fisherman is introduced, soliciting the council for 
the release of his grandson from the galleys. Tlie object was to 
exhibit the self-styled republic setting at nought another of the 
holiest of human affections. In the case of the " Bravo," it trifled 
with the piety of the child ; in that of Antonio, it was defeating 
parental care ; and all at the expense of the many, for the parti- 
cular advantages of the few. This grandson, a boy of tender 
years, is mentioned merely from the necessity of the case. The 
critic thinks, however, that he has detected an unpardonable sin, 
in the casual manner in which the lad is finally brought into the 
reader's presence. We will let him speak for himself " There 
is a law with regard to romance," he says, unhappily without re- 
ferring to the page of these critical pandects, " which forbids 
the introduction of the name, qualities, and character of any 

c 2 



20 



person, who is not eventually introduced propria persona ; and 
we learn the utility of the law by seeing it broken. The old 
fisherman, Antonio, has a grandson confined to the galleys," (he 
was pressed yor the galleys,) " and he makes it the business of his 
life*^ to procure his liberation. To this end, he pleads with a 
member of the Council of Three," &c. &c., (the details are 
omitted as unnecessary,) " yet at the conclusion of all this, we 
find the following solitary reference to the subject : — ' next to this 
characteristic equipage of the dead, walked a lad, whose brown 
cheek, half naked body, and dark roving eye, announced the 
grandson of the fisherman. Venice knew when to yield grace- 
fully, and the boy was liberated, unconditionally, from the 
galleys ; in pity, as it was whispered, for the untimely fate of the 
parent.' A line or two more informs (us) that he lived and died as 
other people do. It may be said, in reply to the commencement 
of this paragraph, that as the boy is actually introduced, the rule 
is not infi'inged. In letter it is not, we admit, but it is in spu'it. 
After half a book has been taken up to prepare an appearance, 
such an appearance is virtually none at all, either to satisfy an 
established rule, or the reader's expectations. We need not refer 
to rules to prove this an unpardonable fault." 

All this parade about a rule, (whose very existence is a little 
equivocal) savours of the academ}^, and is essentially French. If 
this rule were authority, the story of the Ephesian matron, for 
instance, would make but a scurvy figure in a tale, since the dear 
poor man, whose sainted qualities would fill the widow's heart for 
more than half a book, could only be presented to the reader as a 
ghost ; a violation of probabilities that would quite unsettle the 
philosophy of " ces quar antes qui ont V esprit comme quatre^ 

It is as easy to teach certain capacities rules, as it is to teach a 
parrot to speak ; but there seems to be the same difficulty in 
causing the first to know when to apply what they have learned, 
as there is in causing the bird to think. If there had been a pre- 
paration for an " appearance," there certainly should have been 



* It may be well to note the general exaggeration of the language. The grand- 
father was seventy, the grandson a boy, and the action of the tale, so far as the first 
was concerned, occupies about thirty hours ! 



21 



an " appearance ;" but as the only " appearance" contemplated, 
was that of strong human affections, ruthlessly violated, the inge- 
nuity of our critic is quite thrown away. 

I beg the reader will hear my account of the matter. Antonio 
demands the restoration of his child, who had been pressed to 
serve the state, while the children of the senators were permitted 
to go free. His suffering and his virtues raise the popular sym- 
pathy, and he is murdered in cold blood to get rid of him. The 
mistake of the multitude imputes the crime to Jacopo, whom the 
council allows to be executed, in order to conceal its o^vn agency 
in the fisherman's death. The boy is introduced, at his grand- 
father's obsequies, for the old man is buried -^vdth public honours, 
with a view to show the manner in which the state continued to 
deceive, and not to satisfy any critical canon ; the object of all 
being to demonstrate the fearful tendency of an irresponsible, 
soulless, arbitrary, poHtical power. The whole of this reasoning 
of Cassio struck me as having the academic pretension of French 
criticism, in the hands of a bungler. As the editor of the 
" American" appears to take pride in the cleverness of his corres- 
pondent, however, I feel a particular deske to show him the 
beauty of the bantling to which he has so good-naturedly stood 
godfather. Let us imagine a suitable subject. The name of 
Solomon having been introduced already, in conjunction with 
that of his correspondent, luckily suggests the very one that is 
wanted. We will imagine a poet bent on working up the cele- 
brated judgment of the King of Israel into a tale of the usual size. 
He delineates the loves of the two mothers, their common delight 
in the birth of men-childi'en, and the yearnings of maternal 
affection over these precious gifts. Jerusalem, with its temple, 
its historical associations, and its usages, are successfully por- 
trayed.* Then comes the appeal to the wise man of the 
earth for justice. The text is enriched with aphorisms from the 



* Or, to use the language of the " New- York American," " Jerusalem (pro hac 
vice) is absolutely presented to the eye in the minute and picturesque descriptions of 
its canals, palaces, and squares; while its sports are admirably illustrated by the 
gorgeous ceremony of the nuptials of the" — king of the Jews with Queen Sheba, 
for the want of a better. 



22 



lips of Solomon, with admirable touches of nature from the true 
mother, and with finely managed strokes of art from her who 
would deceive. The judgment follows, the whole concluding 
amid the wonder, the tears, and the admiration of the reader. It 
will be easy to fancy the writer of such a work in good humour 
with himself. Chance brings it, however, in the way of a certain 
person who is troubled with that most pernicious gift of Provi- 
dence, a whittling intellect, " Sir," suggests this exquisitely 
tempered mind, " your work has an unpardonable fault. ^ There 
is a law of romance which forbids the introduction of the name, 
qualities, and character of any person, who is not eventually in- 
troduced propria persona.' You work upon our feelings, in 
relation to these babies, through two entire volumes, and con- 
clude without making us sufficiently acquainted with either of 
them. I denounce the work. It is hopelessly damned." " You 
will remember, that the object was to portray maternal love ; I 
had no occasion to do more than to represent the existence of 
one child, and the death of the other." Sir, the rule." " Is 
not thej^dom of Solomon to your liking ?" " The rule— the 
rule — t^Pvenerable, the sacred rule !" " You forget that, at least, 
one of the babies was dead." " You had the other. I do not 
know that even the dead might not have been brought to life, 
rather than violate so absolute a rule. At all events, you did 
nothing with the quick." " It was not possible to make a baby 
walk, talk, and act like a hero." " The rule, sir, the rule — you 
might have carried forward the time eighteen or twenty years? 
permitting the child to grow into these capabilities. Sir, you are 
little better than an ass, having overlooked an imperative rule." 
" To the devil with you and your rule ; so long as the reader 
laughs when I laugh, weeps when I weep, and feels the force of 
the moral I would inculcate, I care not a straw for either." 

Very well, sir ; we shall see. I am about to denounce your 
book for a violation of this very rule." " Denounce and 
welcome ; you will only prove your own folly, and the world will 
laugh at you for your pains." " Sir, you reckon without your 
host. I am by no means the man you take me for, but a favourite 
correspondent of the ' New- York American,' whose editor is 
publicly pledged to cause all I wi ite to be printed !" 



23 



As tliis affair of the "riile"isj I believe, the only serious 
attempt at ratiocination in the whole of " Cassio's" article, all the 
rest of it being modest assertions, whose value depends very much 
on the value of Cassio himself, I have been tempted into this little 
digression, out of respect to the subject. The reader should not 
complain, for he is certainly better off than before, having now 
two judgments of Solomon's, instead of one. 

It remains to be shown, that the article was mitten in bad 
faith. This fact is, in my opinion, sufficiently apparent in its 
general tone. The editor of the "American," who is a gentleman 
and an educated man, or I certainly should not take tliis pains to 
convince him of his error, must, I think, admit it himself, when 
he comes seriously to examine the communication. His corres- 
pondent pretty plainly intimates, for mstance, that if the author 
of the " Bravo" wishes to escape the contempt of his fellow-creatures, 
he must write no more such books, ^'^len I compared tliis with 
the operas, the pictures, the di^amas, and the other notices of the 
book, that of the "American," in particular, was I so "vsTong in 
thinking that such exaggerated censure could not be honestly 
given ? There is also a supererogatory sensibilit}^ to the honour 
of America, on the part of the critic, that was exceedingly to be 
distrusted. The honom- of America, which had nothing at all to 
do with the matter, is ostentatiously pressed into notice ; and as 
for Cassio, he tells us, in so many words, that if, as he has no 
doubt will be the case, the papers come out in favour of the book, 
he, for one, is prepared to blush for his country.* Tliis asseve- 
ration of Cassio, by the way, is rather a pleasant commentary on 
the opinion of the "American" quoted. 

But there is a circumstance which can leave no doubt on any 
reasonable mind, that the critique was %\Titten in bad faith. Its 
second paragi'aph contains these words : — " We have read the 
book as leisurely as novels require to be read, and yet, when the 
task is accomplished, ive have forgotten the plot^ we have forgotten 
the hero and heroine^ we have even forgotten in ichat small portion 
of the work we were interested. We can recal, it is true,_^some 



* Let him speak for himself: — " And we shall blush the deeper, if, as we ■ 
half the newspapers in the land come out with unqualified praise of 'the Bravo.' ' 



24 



^Hracery" of a preface, which appears to be " arty thing but to 
the purpose" — an occasional redundancy of moon-hght — the name 
of" Bravo" — a few Italian interjections and masks — a few alanris — 
a few races and a few fainting fits, interspersed with formidable 
essays on political economy, &c. &c." It will be seen that there 
is no slip of the pen. The word forgotten is three times delibe- 
rately and pretendingly used, so that there can be no defence of 
inadvertency. Apart from some little distrust on the subject of 
so much ultra forgetfulness, I confess that this solemn and pon- 
derous asseveration a good deal astonished me. He who had so 
effectually forgotten the plot, the hero, and heroine, and even the 
small part that interested him in a novel, was, virtually, so much 
in the situation of him who never knew any thing about them, 
that it was not easy to see what more a critic had to say. Now 
the reader, should he think the result worth his time, on examin- 
ing the whole communication, will find that all he says of those 
parts of the book, of ivhich he adjnits he does retain some recollection^ 
is contained in the paragraph just quoted; and that he goes on to 
show, to the end of his article, that he has not forgotten the plot^ 
the hero and heroine, and the small parts of the book in which he 
was interested ; for he does little else than slash away at them all, 
right and left, during two closely printed columns of the " New- 
York American" ! As if this were not sufficient, our acute ob- 
server goes on to furnish as minute a detail of self-refutation as, 
probably, ever figured in the annals of bastard criticism. On 
looking over the quotation from his article, where he undertakes 
to reason, it will be seen he says, that the cursory manner in 
which the grandson of the fisherman is presented to the reader, 
after so many previous allusions, is an unpardonable fault, in 
virtue of his "rule." Here, then, we have a critic formally de- 
claring that the plot of a novel is so worthless that he has for- 
gotten it, and then, a few lines further on, damning it on account 
of the cursory manner in which one of its characters is introduced ! 

Language is mockery, or here is indubitable e>adence that the 
correspondent of the "American" either did not know, or did not 
care, what he said. I saw in these facts all the proof any man 
could desire, that the article was written in bad faith, and instead 
of believing that the Editor of the "American" would presume so 



25 



boldly on the dulness of his readers as to authorize the publica- 
tion of this stuff, 1 thought at the time I first saw the critique, 
and said as much to the two gentleman who were present, that it 
must have been admitted to^ the columns of his journal during his 
absence from town. 

From internal evidence of this nature, and from much more of 
a similar character that might be adduced, particularly on the 
score of grammar and idiom, I gave it as my opinion to Mr. 
Morse, and the other gentleman present at the reading of the 
article, that this critique came from France, and that it was either 
a translation, or had been written by one who was not very con- 
versant vsdth the English language, and probably for the reasons 
have named. This was but an opinion, nor could it, in the na- 
ture of things, convey any other impression to those who heard 
me. The second gentleman present (I do not feel authorized to 
name him, for he is absent from the country,) took away the 
paper, declaring an intention to discover the truth, if possible. 
He thought with Mr. Morse and myself, that if the agents of the 
French government had really carried their audacity so far^ it was 
a fact worth knowing. 

A few days after the occurrence of the interview, I left France, 
taking no steps whatever to inquire into this affair. At Aix-la- 
Chapelle, in Germany, about a month after my departure from 
Paris, I received an ordinary letter of friendship from Mr. Morse. 

It told me, among other things, that Mr. , the gentleman 

already alluded to, had been as good as his word ; that he had 
taken up the inquiry after the writer of the critique with zeal ; 
that he had ascertained the communication was certainly written 
at Paris, and that he had been promised the name of the writer 
If he succeeded in getting the latter, it was to be sent to me. At 
Berne, other letters were received, that were silent on the subject. 
At Vevay, about two months after I had quitted France, I got a 

letter, which mentioned that Mr. had been completely 

successful, and the name of the writer (a Frenchman) was given. 
It will be seen that there was no precipitation in this inquiry. 
The parties through whom the intelligence was communicated to 
me were both men of sense and of high respectability, and the 
intelligence was given as a naked fact, without any sort of reser- 



26 



vation. I did what I presume any other person would have done 
in a similar situation ; I believed what I was so distinctly and 
unreservedly told, and I set the whole affair down as one, among 
a great many more transactions of the same character, that had 
come to my knowledge within the last ten years. 

When I returned to Paris, both Mr. Morse and the friend who 
had communicated the critic's name, had gone to America. The 
latter I have not since seen. Occasionally, when the good faith 
of the French government party was under discussion, I men- 
tioned the fact, (giving my authorities,) as a proof how low they 
descended in their hostility ; and once, in a burlesque publication 
that was intended to rebut their calumnies on this country, I play- 
fully alluded to their critical zeal. Here the matter rested, so 
far as I was concerned, for several months. At the end of that 
time, I received another letter from Mr. Morse, in which the 
subject was again alluded to. He told me it was asserted in New- 
York, that the article in question was written in this city^ by "an 
obscure clerk in a counting house he dwelt upon the malignancy 
of a party at home, who had constituted themselves my enemies;* 
and, Mr. being absent from America, he suggested the ex- 
pediency of collecting proof on the spot, and of sending it home 
to refute this story. At the moment when this letter reached me, 
an article of the " Commercial Advertiser " had just attracted my 
serious attention. The article in the "Commercial" appeared to me 
(for reasons that shall be given in their place) to require some 
notice, while the story of the " obscure clerk " at New- York did 
not. In ansv/ering the letter of Mr. Morse, however, I gave him 
full permission to make such use of all those parts of my letter 
that referred to either of the two journals, as he, on the spot, 
might deem expedient. As respects the article of the "American," 
I told him, in brief, that I did not believe the report that it was 
written at New- York by the person in question, for there was 
abundant internal evidence that it came from France, a fact in 
which I could not easily be mistaken. I gave him to understand 
that I had " taken no particular pains" to investigate the affair 



* The names of several of these individuals had been sent to me by another friend ; 
they were persons utterly unknown to me. 



27 

since my return, but I had been informed, that the substance of 
the critique had been published in the ''Journal des Debats." In 
point of fact, I was told nearly thus much by three different 
Americans ; one saying he knew that certain parts existed in that 
journal ; a second, that other parts were to be found in it ; and a 
third giving the fact very much as I communicated it to Mr. 
Morse. J believed all this information, for there was no reason 
to doubt it, and, in the haste of rapid and familiar writing, I at 
first stated as much without reservation in my letter, but, on 
perusing what I had written, I took care to insert the words " as 
I understand," in order to show that I went on the information 
of others. The letter is not in my possession, but I am strongly 
impressed it will be found that these words, " as I understand," 
were interlined for want of space, a circumstance that will give 
them more point, as it will show that they were v/ritten under a 
sense of responsibility. I very well remember to have taken gi'eat 
care not to say any thing as coming from myself, of which I was 
not morally certain. The letter has been printed, and speaks for 
itself. [See note A., end of pamphlet.] When a fact is first 
given, as imparted from others, all that is subsequently said about 
it, is necessarily qualified by that circmnstance. After acquainting 
Mr. Morse with the character of the person whose name had been 
furnished by Mr. , and making a few general remarks sug- 
gested by the subject, I turned to the communication in the 
" Commercial," which it is only necessary to read my letter to see 
treated as much the most important alfaii' of the two. 

It is now said, that all the information I have received on the 
subject of the origin of the critique, as well as my own conjec- 
tures, is erroneous ; the article in question being written by an 
American, who was at Paris. I have little to do with this fact. 
Mr Morse has handsomely admitted that he made the communi- 
cations which have been stated as coming from him, and I do not 
doubt, did circumstances permit it, the other gentleman alluded 
to would do the same thing. They are all absent from America. 
The reasons for my opinions have been freely given, and I feel 
certain that no man, who understands French and who reflects 
on all the circumstances, will consider them light. The Editor 
of the "American" has a just claim to have the truth known, and I 



I 



28 



have taken some pains to state it, I hope clearly, though I 
honestly think he has put himself in a worse situation by avowing 
that " Cassio" was written by a known and esteemed correspon- 
dent, than he would have been left by my conjecture. Besides 
all this, I do not think that the fact, that an American wi'ote the 
article, by any means clears it from the suspicions 1 have men- 
tioned. Its bad faith is not changed by this circumstance ; and 
as for Cassio himself, a witness who has forgotten so much that 
he remembers, and who remembers so much that he has forgotten, 
does not exactly stand before the public in the most favourable 
point of view. 

In the warmth of the moment, the Editor of the "American" has 
permitted expressions to escape him that I think he will regret, 
when he looks more coolly at the affair. He says, in reference to 
me — " Tliis gentleman and his flourishing backer (Mr. Morse) 
ascribe unhesitatingly the critique to the fears ! and resentments ! 
of the French government, roused by the popularity of Mr. 
Cooper's democratic writings ; and the prefacing friend ( Mr. 
Morse) gives us," &c. &c. Now, the manner in which I am 
coupled with Mr. Morse, in the commencement of this paragraph, 
and the manner in which Mr. Morse is made to speak for him- 
self in its close, would give the reader just reason to think I had 
said what is here imputed to me. AH I say is, that " the 'Bravo' is 
certainly no very flattering picture for the upstart aristocrats of 
the new regime, and that nothing is more natural than their de- 
sire to undervalue the book." I leave the reader to compare 
these words with the language just quoted from the " American." 
I was answering a letter, and many of my remarks had a direct 
reference to what had been previously said by my correspondent, 
and it is possible there may be some obscurity in its phrases. My 
own impression was, that the critique was more owing to the 
Finance Controversy than to any other cause, though I had abun- 
dant evidence that the substance of the " Bravo " itself was dis- 
agreeable to some of the new aristocracy. All that is said in the 
" American " of my " flouting" my Americanisms in the faces of 
foreigners, whose hospitality I had been enjoying, is unmerited ; 
and all that is said, by contrast, of the deportment of the person 
who claims the honour of having written Cassio, will appear 



29 



absurd to those who were in Paris during our common residence 
in that city. The circumstance that I believed the article to be 
written for political purposes, by no means justifies the language of 
the "American" in another point of view. Writers are employed, 
by political parties, generally, to assail their enemies, and to de- 
fend their friends ; and it does not follow as a consequence of my 
impression, that I thought there was a meeting of the cabinet in 
order to decide that the communication should be sent to this 
country. I looked upon the whole affair much as I look upon 
one of the attacks of the " American" itself, against any one indi- 
vidual of the present government party at home, or as a thing to 
be done as a matter of course. I now quit the "American," for the 
second of the journals named. 

The " Courier and Enquirer" of June 15,1833, has the following 
article on myself : — 

" Mr. James Fenimore Cooper. — "We perceive by a letter from this 
distinguished gentleman, published in some of our newspapers, that 
his efforts to correct the misrepresentations of the Doctrinaires in 
Paris, on the subject of American taxation, has given great dissatisfac- 
tion in that quarter. It would seem, according to his statement, that 
in order to revenge themselves for having been proved to be in the 
wTong, they have attacked him at a point where every author is most 
sensitive as well as vulDerable in his writings. Severe criticisms have 
subsequently appeared in the ^Journal des Dehats,' and other organs of 
that party, (1) which Mr. Cooper ascribes to a feeling of political hos- 
tility ^ originating in the part lie has taken in vindication^, of his country^ 
whose Public Press he thinks ought to sustain him at this crisis, although 
it will be recollected he lately took occasion to set it at defiance, and ex- 
press his contempt for its opinions. (2) He appears, however, to be most 
touched by a keen and severe criticism on the ^Bravo which made its ap- 
pearance, some year or two since, in the columns of the * New- York 
American,' and which, (3) if we are not mistaken, was antecedent to the 
circumstances supposed to have produced the hostility of the Doctrinaires. 
(4) He is mortified that any of his countrymen should '^appear" to 
have turned against him, and states several facts which in his opinion go to 
prove that the criticism in the ^American' was not written ^ by an obscure 
clerk in a counting house,' as he terms him, but by a Frenchman in Paris, 
and is a mere translation of an article published in the ^Journal des Debats,' 
* a little altered to adapt it to the American reader.' 

We leave this question to be settled between Mr. Cooper and the 
writer who furnished the article for the 'American,' (5) and proceed to 
offer a few remarks on the insinuation thrown out by the former re- 
garding the indisposition of his countrymen to sustain his literary reputa- 
tion against the hostility of the Doctrinaires, which he has provoked by 



30 



attempting their defence. When a citizen of the United States goes to 
reside in a foreign country he places himself under the protection of 
its government and laws, to both of which he owes respect and obedi- 
ence so long as he chooses to stay. If he don't hke them, he should 
not make public his disgust ; and if he w^ishes for the satisfaction of 
railing, he had better go home, and indulge his inclination there. In 
short, he has no business to meddle in politics. 

(6) But it is quite a different case when the character of his country 
is assailed, its manners ridiculed, its morals and religion questioned, and 
its institutions exhibited in a contemptuous contrast with those of any 
other nation. He is then, we think, hound hy every motive of patriotism, 
every duty of a citizen, to vindicate his country to the utmost extent of his 
power with his pen, as a soldier does with his sword. In this latter pre- 
dicament was Mr. Cooper placed ; his country was represented as taxed 
with burdens heavier than those home hy France, and he was, we think, 
not only right in refuting the calumny, hut he would Jiave been emphati- 
cally wanting in duty to his country had he neglected the task. Pf^e think 
his country ought to he, and have no doubt she is, grateful for his good 
offices. 

In our opinion he does great injustice to the people of the United 
States, in supposing them indifferent to, or inclined to detract from, his 
reputation as a writer ; or that they, or any portion of them, * have, as 
he asserts, joined in a conspiracy with Jiis enemies in France. He is still 
one of the most popular writers of our country, which has done its 
part liberally in contributing to his fortune as well as his fame. If 
some of his latter works have failed in supporting the reputation of the 
former ones, this is a misfortune which often befals men of the greatest 
genius. They cannot for ever be quaffing at the fount of inspiration, 
nor does it always exhilarate alike. Neither does the public always 
judge ahke. Its taste is perpetually altering, and mankind at length 
become tired of an old author, as voluptuaries do of an old mistress, 
whom they forsake for a new one, perhaps in reality not half so 
attractive. (7) But why should Mr. Cooper suppose that an unfavoura- 
ble criticism on a work, which did not peculiarly address itself to the 
feelings of his countrymen, is evidence of their indifference or hostility ? 
If critics are in general so corrupt, as he insinuates, why should he appeal 
to his country and to the world against a criticism ? To our mind it 
would be much more dignified to treat all comments coming from 
such impure sources, with at least the aifectation of indifference, and, 
whatever he may feel, keep his feelings to himself. He has acquired 
a briUiant, and probably a lasting reputation ; he can spare a leafj 
without spoiling the wreath entwined round his brow. 

(8) He should remember, that when an American writer goes abroad 
to reap laurels, on a wider field, and a richer soil, though he may possess 
many advantages over such as remain in the obscurity of home, yet these 
are counterbalanced, hy weights in the other scale. If he can only establish 



* Query. — 'How can an indifferent commentator kno'.v this ? 



31 



a reputation in any part of Europe, there will he little question of his 
talents here ; they will he taken in a great degree on trust, as merchants 
receive their goods, on the faith of the invoice. But, on the other hand, 
it will be necessary to lose his identity as a citizen of this obnoxious 
republic ; to pay due deference to the claims of the well born, and 
yield prompt obedience to the long established rights of European 
superiority ; to flatter their prejudices with indirect adroitness, and to 
avoid giving offence by retorting sarcasms, or refuting calumnies on 
his country, its institutions and character. In short, he must en- 
deavour to speak, and, if he writes, to write in such a decorous man- 
ner, that the most expert critic shall not be able to detect a single 
sentiment of affection or preference for the land of his birth. He may 
then possibly be pardoned the misfortune of having been born on this 
side of the Atlantic, and be hailed as a giant, for having attained the 
size of a man among a nation of pigmies! 

But after all it is impossible to please every body, unless a man has 
the good fortune to have no opinions of his own. You "cannot serve 
two masters" ; and it is the height of presumption to expect to retain 
possession, even if we should conquer, two worlds at a time. In the 
present war of interests and opinions, when those in high places 
abroad perceive in the example and influence of the Great Repub- 
lic the sources of imminent danger to their long established authority, 
it is to be expected that misrepresentations of every kind will be re- 
sorted to, for the purpose of weakening the force of that example. 
We hold it the duty of every American to do his best to refute and 
retort such manifestations of hostility, for, to use the strong words of 
an American writer, ^ we never yet saw an instance of a man or a 
nation that gained aught but contempt by submission, or that did not 
thus invite a repetition of insult and injury.' By pursuing a manly 
course of resistance to the injustice of foreign writers, an American 
must necessarily lose his popularity among that class of critics which 
in some measure directs, or at least indicates the taste of the aristocracy 
of Europe. (9) Hence it is that writers must either suppress all ex- 
pressions of partiality to their country and its government, or they will, 
like Mr. Cooper, become the object of frequent hostility. He must 7nake 
his choice, and, when made, submit with dignity to the sacrifice, with the 
assurance that a time will come, when, in all probability, the number of his 
American readers will far exceed those of France and England com- 
bined. This is a sufficient remuneration, and with this we think he 
ought to be satisfied. 

Assuredly Mr. Cooper has nothing to complain of, in regard to the 
return made by his countrymen, and indeed by the world at large, for 
the amusement he has afforded them in his writings. Let him com- 
pare his situation with that of Homer, Milton, Dryden, Otway, 
Fielding, Le Sage, Cervantes — the inimitable Cervantes ! — the immor- 
tal labours of whose whole lives were insufficient to keep the wolf 
from the door. Let him remember the fate of these illustrious writers, 
and thank God for all his mercies." 



32 



I notice this article, although it appears as editorial, under the 
impi ession that it is not what it seems. It abounds in errors and 
misconstructions, some of which are of a nature almost to raise the 
suspicion that the finger of Cassio was concerned in producing 
them. It was especially sent to me (in duplicate) at Paris, along 
with the statement of the "American" and its correspondent 
" Cassio," and I presume I am at least right in considering it as 
coming from the enemy. I have caused parts of this article to be 
italicised and numbered, for the convenience of reference. Let 
us commence with No. 1. Here is a great error. I have never 
meant to say that the Press of this country ought to sustain me at 
this crisis, [what crisis ?] nor do I know that I have ever set it at 
defiance, or expressed any especial contempt for its opinions. My 
letter is there to answer for the first assertion. I do not think it 
contains a word to justify it. As to the second, I ask when and 
where I have set the press of this country at defiance ? The 
press of this country is, like the men who control it, composed 
of good, bad, and indilFerent, and any general character would be 
liable to great qualification. 

No. 2. I certainly do not think I seem (the allusion is to my 
published letter) to be most touched by a keen and severe criti- 
cism on the "Bravo." The criticism on the "Bravo," as a criticism, 
never excited any feeling in me, nor did I ever express any in 
reference to it, beyond that which no intelligent man will need an 
interpreter to understand. Its importance was derived from its 
supposed origin. In the parts of my letter to Mr. Morse that 
are published, some feeling, I admit, is betrayed in reference to 
the article in the "Commercial," which excited a strong indignation, 
for I believed it to be the offspring of a piece of pitiful Jesuitism 
and double-dealing. I believe so still. A simple, arithmetical 
process will prove that it was this article, and not the puerile 
attack of the American's correspondent, that I deemed the most 
important. My remarks on the critique in the "American," 
besides being necessary as an answer to the letter of Mr. Morse, 
and being much less strong than those on the " Commercial," fill 
just forty-eight printed lines of a newspaper, while those on the 
"Commercial" fill one hundred and sixty-five. There is, I think, 
a misprint in my letter, where it is said that Mr. Morse had 



a3 



alluded previously to the attack in the " Commercial." He had 
certainly made no such allusion, and all I say on this part of the 
subject is said at my own suggestion. This assertion of the 

Courier and Enquirer " appears to me to be made to press the 
critique of Cassio into an importance I never gave it. 

No. 3. This is another mistake. The critique of the "American" 
appeared June 7th, 1832, and my letter to Gen. Lafayette bears 
date November 25, 1831 ; leaving an interval of six months 
between them. There was even time to have sent an article from 
Paris after my last letter, (that to Mr. Harris, published May 
3, 1832,) and to get it inserted in the "American" of June 7th. 

No. 4. I am unconscious of having expressed any such morti- 
fication, nor can I find the word " appear," as here used, in any 
part of my letter. So far from calling the writer of the critique 
" an obscure clerk in a counting-house," I expressly tell Mr. 
Morse that I do not believe the story to that effect, which he had 
sent me. This assertion is calculated to create an impression 
that I estimate the intellectual value of a man according to his 
social position. On this point I can only say, that any such 
opinion is opposed to the practice of a whole life. 

No. 5. I cannot find any thing in my letter to justify this. I 
have complained that the press did not support me in the Finance 
Controversy, in which I thought the honour of the country con- 
cerned, but I cannot recal any complaint of a want of support 
merely as a writer. 

No. 6. I lay claim to no such patriotism, nor do I at all think 
it was the " duty " of an American to refute the allegations of M. 
Saulnier, apart from what he owed to General Lafayette. He 
might do it, or he might not, as he saw proper. If such a duty 
had in truth existed, of all the men in America, I was perhaps 
the one on whom it was the least imperative. I had already made 
a heavy sacrifice to support the character of this country abroad, 
and the effort had been so indifferently requited at home, that I 
should have thought myself fairly exempt from any further service 
of the sort. 

No. 7. All this, and indeed most that goes before it in the 
same paragraph, certainly is not justified by any thing 1 had said. 
It ascribes a meaning to me, I think, quite without authority. I 

D 



34 



am not complaining of criticism, but of the Press lending itself to 
the views of our enemies. This is so obvious on the face of my 
letter, that I confess this portion of the article of the " Courier and 
Enquirer " struck me as being expressly designed to give undue 
importance to the critique of the "x\merican." 

No. 8. I never went abroad " to reap laurels on a wider field," 
nor did my presence in Europe in the shghtest degree extend any 
little reputation I may possess as a writer, or add a dollar to my 
means. What I wrote was just as much before the European 
public before I quitted home, as it is now, and instead of making 
friends abroad to puff and sustain me, I made enemies, as will 
presently be shown, by refusing to submit to the practices of those 
who call themselves critics. All that the "Courier" says on this 
head, therefore, is uttered under an erroneous impression, and is 
in no degree warranted by the facts. 

No. 9. There is a singular misconception of the cii'cum stances 
in this paragraph. My choice loas made ; it was in favour of my 
own country, her character and her institutions ; and my com- 
plaint was not that foreigners abused me, but that those in tvJiose 
favour this choice had been made, helped to circulate their abuse. 

I could say a great deal more concerning this article of the 
" Courier and Enquirer," but I presume enough has been sho'v\Ti to 
make it appear that it has not been written with sufficient atten- 
tion to the facts of the case. I shall advert to only two more of its 
statements. My country is said to have advanced my fortune 
and my fame. The last is a word of pregnant signification, and 
is not to be used lightly. We have seen already the embarrass- 
ment into w^hich the " American" has got, by flingmg about this 
term too liberall3\ But putting the degree out of the question, 
the truth of this remark of the journal must depend on a principle 
that is general. If I owe reputation to my country, I owe grati- 
tude ; and if I owe both, other Americans are in the same predi- 
cament. Under what a load of obligation to their counhy, for 
instance, such men as Washington, Franklin, and Jay, particu- 
larly the latter, must have lived and died, if this novel doctrine of 
the " Courier and Enquirer" should happen to be true ! 

But I have more interest in settling the point of fortune. It is 
bad enough to have obligations of this sort thrown into one's face 



S5 



when they are true, but it becomes a little hard to be borne when 
there is no foundation whatever for the pretension. I cannot 
suppose that the journal means to be understood that I am in- 
debted to those who may have bought any books I have v^ritten. 
So far from this being true, some of the latter are still indebted 
to me, and this too without much hope of payment. I- presume a 
literary man does not intend to degrade literature, and yet it 
would be just as true to tell the grocer at his nearest corner, that 
the fortune he is making by liis industry and judgment is due to 
the liberality of the public, as it is to tell a writer that he is in- 
debted to the public for the money that is paid him by his publisher. 
The public buys to please itself, and not to confer favours on 
authors ; and, could the experiment be tried, I will answer for it, 
that were any popular book of a native witer to be pirated and 
sold at half price, it would be found that the rogue disposed of 
two copies to the honest dealer's one.* I am led to think that 
the writer of this article was under a mistake that I am afraid is 
sufficiently general, and which I hope now to be able to remove. 

Since my return home, applications have been made to me to 
know the amount of the salary and of the emoluments of the con- 
sulate of Lyons, of which I was certainly the incumbent for a 
year or two. I have also understood, from a member of Con- 
gress, that there was an unpression I had a salary from the 
government ; and, in a pretended sketch of my life, that appeared 
lately in one of the papers, and in which, I think, thirteen alleged 
facts had just three truths, I am said to have filled the office of 
Charge d'affaii'es at Paris, a situation that would have given me 
4500 dollars outfit, and as much of yearly salary. No part of all 



* It is an amusing commentary on this opinion of the journal, that a great many- 
instances have come to my knowledge of Americans who have not read any thing I 
have wi-itten, for the avowed reason that nothing good could come from a country- 
man. A few days after my return, I met an old friend in the street. He appeared 
glad to see me — so glad^ that I thought his reception one of the warmest it had been 
my good fortune to meet with. After a little conversation, I discovered that his 
joy proceeded from an impression that I had been dead some six or seven years. 
Here was immortality at once, in lieu of all this fame. Unhappily, there are many 
reasons why this country can give " fame to no one ; and among them is the 
degrading practice of leaning on others for so many of its opinions, 

D 2 



36 



this is true. Mr. Clay (I wish it to be understood that this letter 
is written without the slightest view to party, for I shall never 
voluntarily lower myself from the condition of a freeman to 
become the mere political partizan of any man) very kindly ac- 
ceeded to my request of making me a consul, with a view that, 
while travelling, I might not have the air of expatriating myself. 
Lyons was chosen simply because there was nothing to do. This 
office cost me just one hundred dollars in outfit, and returned to 
me just nothing. After a little time I resigned the nominal 
situation, under the conviction that gross abuses exist in a great 
deal that relates to our foreign appointments, abuses that I still 
hope to expose, and because I felt it was incumbent on me to set 
an example of the principles I professed. 

This consulate was of no other use to me than that I have 
named. It gave neither money, social rank, nor personal consi- 
deration, and I claim no merit for the moderation of my views. 
As to the office of Charge d'affaires, I do not see how the mistake 
could well have arisen. It is a situation I certainly could not 
have taken for many reasons ; for which I never in any manner 
applied ; nor in any way desired. It is possible that the writer 
of the article in question, in the ardour of his patriotism, has 
supposed that the interest I manifested in the Finance Contro- 
versy may have been quickened by a fat salary. This opinion 
was not unnatural, for the secretary of state had made an appeal 
to all the governors to produce their statements to show, in de- 
fence of the action of free institutions, that our side of the question 
was right. With these views of the case, he has probably fallen 
into an error from some confusion in the facts. The office of 
Charge d'affaires was conferred on a gentleman who certainly had 
a part in the Finance Controversy ; but, his opinions being di- 
rectly opposed to those of General Lafayette and myself, he hap- 
pened to take the opposite side of the question. As between me 
and my country, the account current of both profit and honour 
exhibits a blank sheet. I have never laid any claim to having 
conferred either, and I do not feel disposed to admit that I have 
received either. This is a subject on which I could gladly have 
been silent, but as it has been pressed into notice, it is due to 
myself to state the truth. The private feelings and interests of an 



37 



individual can be of no great moment to the public, and I shall 
say no more, unless it be to add, that there is a facetiousness in 
the opinion of the journal on the subject of the " honour " I have 
received from my countrymen, that touches on mockery. 

I come now to the article of the " Commercial Advertiser." [See 
note B., end of pamphlet.] It consists of an extract from the 
Revue Encyclopedique on the " Heidenmauer;"of some joint com- 
ments of the editor of the journal, and of a correspondent, touch- 
ing the impropriety of foreigners meddling with the politics of 
France ; and an assertion, that France would not have abused us 
had certain of our countrymen not meddled with her private 
affairs. The allusions were obviously intended for me. Apart 
from a good deal of puerility in believing it any justification for 
vituperating a whole people, that one or two of its citizens had 
misbehaved, this article is written jesuitically as to manner, illo- 
gically as to its reasonings, and erroneously as to its facts. The 
history of the manner in which I entered into the discussion on 
the cost on governments has been given ; and the reader is left to 
judge for himself how far I obtruded my opinions on a foreign 
people. If it be meant that I meddled privately with foreign po- 
litics it is a mistake, and all reports to the contrary are untrue. 
Whenever there was a question of bringing the example of 
America to bear upon the rest of the world, it was my wish that 
it should be done with truth ; and as I strongly condemned the 
course taken by too many of our countrymen abroad, who defend 
our own system as the one best adapted to our immediate situation, 
when appealed to on this head, and on proper occasions, it was 
my habit to defend it on principle. I had early learned the use 
that was made by any concessions on this topic, and I determined 
that if any man quoted me against the action of free governments, 
he should quote me wrongfully. Even this has been done, so 
eager are the aristocrats to snatch any thing like a concession 
from an American ; but against such a fraud no human foresight 
can guard. 

The letter to Mr. Morse was written chiefly to draw the atten- 
tion of the public to particular facts. I believed then, and I believe 
still, that the article of the " Commercial " had its rise in the 
apprehensions of an agent of the United States, who felt that if I 
was right in the affair of the Finance Discussion, he had been very 



38 



wrong ; and who was desirous of forestalling public opinion, with 2i 
view to weaken the effect of any statement of the facts I might 
hereafter make. Added to this, was a wish on my part to check the 
degrading practice of quoting from the foreign journals, to which 
there has so often been allusion. I had little interest in the re- 
sult, for the letter to Mr. Morse, a great part of which has not 
been published, acquainted that gentleman with a resolution, that 
had long been made, of abandoning the pursuits of a writer, (a 
resolution that he well knew had not been lightly formed ;) and 
that I only waited to comply with existing engagements to bring 
the tales to an end. This has been done, the last book of the 
series having been published. I did not go through the form of 
taking leave of the reader, for I had never known any other 
public than my own country, and I fully believe the editor of the 
" American" when he says, that I have been losing its favour 
since I went abroad. Under such circumstances, a leave- 
taking would have been mockery, and I only allude to the facts 
now, as a witness releases his rights in a contested claim, or to 
purge myself from the imputation of having an interest in the 
result. I wish what I am about to say not to be lost, but that 
it may serve those who come after me. I do not think this is a 
country in which any man can yet hope to be sustained as a 
writer, should he decide to take part frankly with the institutions 
and character of his country ; the feelings of those who control 
public sentiment on subjects of this nature, are opposed to his 
success;* but should any yoimg aspirant for literary reputation 
believe otherwise, I am willing to make an effort to afford him 
fair play. This opinion will probably surprise many of my 
readers, for there is a superabundance of patriotic profession ; 
but let any discerning man look closely at the facts, and I believe 
he will come to my way of thinking. 

The editor of the " Commercial" appears to have had some mis- 
givings himself, as to the propriety of the course he was taking. 
He says that the review (la Revue Encyclopedique) was sent to 
him along with a letter from a correspondent; and when a 
foreign publication is thus introduced, the public has a right to 
believe that the " correspondent" is a correspondent abroad ; and 

* The instinct of the sclfiyh sufficiently denotes the course that is dictated by expediency. 



39 



this the more especially when the allusion is made in a journal 
that is constantly flourishing its foreign correspondence before its 
readers. 

I am now told that the article was concocted in this city, be- 
tween the editor and a young man who was never out of his native 
country, to whom I was a perfect stranger, and who could know 
nothing of my private course abroad, except from the dangei-ous 
and uncertain evidence of vulgar rumour. I neither know nor 
care whether this report be true or false. I have been openly 
assailed ; my discretion has been impugned ; my conduct misre- 
presented, and the right to defend myself will not be denied. 
However direct may have been the agency of the diplomatic func- 
tionary alluded to, I have no doubt that his representations are at 
the bottom of the whole affair. As to this yoimg man, if he prove 
not a man of straw, he will not be the first who has believed that 
he played the organ when he was only blowing the bellows. I 
repeat, then, it is my opinion that the said diplomatic agent is at 
the bottom of the whole affair. I thought I could detect even his 
style in the language of the Commercial's correspondent ; but if 
I was mistaken in this particular, then there are two persons 
who make such a parade of prepositions as " to, at, and for," 
instead of one. At a future day, v/hen better prepared, I shall 
speak more openly on this point. The editor of the " Commercial" 
himself appears to have distrusted the propriety of what he was 
doing, for he places its justification on his " knowledge of the 
fact that Mr. Cooper prefers the censure, to the praise, of the 
newspaper press. Of this peculiarity of his taste he has taken 
care to inform us in the preface to the " Heidenmauer," in which he 
says, in so many words — ' Each hour, as life advances, am I made 
to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by 
a newspaper.' " Now this sentence is made the apology of the 
editor of the " Commercial" for admitting into his columns an attack 
against the interests and character of an absent countryman ; 
under cover of an article that was written by he knew not whom ; 
which article contained a direct contradiction of itself to prove its 
worthlessness ; which appeared in a periodical of little reputation, 
and which derived all its influence here, from a degradhig practice 
which this editor did not hesitate to aid in upholding, in order to 



40 



gratify his resentments. I now propose to furnish proof of the 
consistency and sincerity of the editor of the " Commercial Ad- 
vertiser." 

First as to the appHcation of the sentence from the preface of 
the " Heidenmauer." I was giving an account of the journey which 
took me to the scene of the tale. The route led across the 
country which had just been traversed by the Prince of Orange 
in his celebrated march upon Brussels ; a march which had so 
nearly effected a counter-revolution in Belgium. The journals 
were teeming with denunciations of the Dutch for their excesses, 
and the Prince of Orange was unhesitatingly consigned to lasting 
infamy, for the cruelties, conflagrations, and other outrages that 
he had permitted or ordered. These facts were subjects of public 
notoriety. On passing over the scene of this pretended violence, 
a few days after it was stated to have occurred, I looked in vain 
for the evidences of its truth. The remark, which the editor of 
the " Commercial" deems a justification of his course, was elicited 
by these facts. The word " vulgar" is used in its broad and true 
signification, and, in the sentence in which it was used, it meant 
common-place or liable to popular error; but in the " Commercial" 
it is put in italics, as if its editor attached some such meaning to it 
as would be bandied between two cobbler's wives that were dis- 
puting about the gentility of their respective coteries. This is a 
simple statement of the facts. I beg the reader to give a moment 
to their application. 

In the " New- York Commercial Advertiser," of June 17, 1833, 
among a good deal more to the same effect, I find these words : — 
" The precipitate manner in which many conductors of papers 
condemn men and measures, upon slight evidence, is one of the 
prevailing evils or rather sins of this country. The conductors of 
public papers occupy a very responsible situation in society; 
many of them are men of talents ; but party spirit has so far per- 
verted the proper use of the press, that it has been seriously 
questioned by sensible men, whether, on the whole, the press 
serves most to enlighten public opinion with truth, or to pervert 
it with error." The letter of which this extract is a part, is signed 
N. Webster ; a gentleman of great experience, who was once, I 
believe, editor of what is now the Commercial Advertiser," him- 



41 



self, and who probably understood very well what he was saying. 
This letter was doubtless, on the principle which justified the at- 
tack on me, introduced into the " Commercial" in order to furnish 
a justification of an attack against Dr. Webster's Dictionary, or a 
reproof for his holding sound American opinions when he was 
in Europe ; as, I am happy to say, is understood to have been the 
case : — no such thing : it is introduced by a merited eulogium on 
the venerable lexicographer, to whose especial benefit a whole 
column of the " Commercial" is devoted ! It would offend the 
reader's common sense to say any more. 

There seems to be an opinion prevalent among some of the 
editors of this country, that they who conduct the public press 
are invested with peculiar privileges. The press is either a 
powerful instrument of good, or a terrible engine of evil. They 
who control it do not possess a single right that is not equally 
the property of every one of their fellow-citizens ; while, in place 
of these imaginary immunities, they exercise the self-assumed 
office under a moral responsibility that should cause every man 
of principle to hesitate before he undertakes duties so grave. A 
grosser abuse of accidental circumstances cannot be imagined, 
than that of a man of envious and malignant temperament 
pouring out the workings of an evil spirit, under favour of these 
extraordinary means of publicity, carrying pain into the bosoms 
of families, making his crude opinions the arbiters of reputation, 
and pulling down, without the talent to build up again. The 
misconception on the subject of these imaginary privileges has 
arisen from the fact that arbitrary governments, aware of the in- 
fluence of the journals, having curtailed even the power to do 
good, and free governments having restored to them this unques- 
tionable right, some, who identify their own selfishness too closely 
with principles which ought to be sacred, have fancied that the 
emancipation from a wrong has brought with it a charter for 
licentiousness. 

All that is believed to be necessary has now been said in reply 
to the three journals particularly named, and I shall beg the 
reader to have patience while I furnish some evidence of the 
quality of the mental aliment that is daily served out to the 
American public, by the practice of copying the opinions of 



42 



foreigners. I shall be obliged to speak continually of myself, for 
the reasons already given ; but I trust the appai'ent egotism will 
be pardoned, when it is remembered that in no other way could 
I conmiand the same materials, or fm-nish evidence so little liable 
to error. The object is to let my countrwien into some of tlie 
secrets of the critical fraternit}^, at the same tmie that I show the 
danger of doing injustice by cuxulating calumnies of miknoTsii 
origin, and lay bare the miited ignorance and impudence of those 
abroad who affect to speak of us, as the gi'eater experience of the 
old world would appear to entitle the sages of the east to treat the 
t}Tos of the west. In order to effect such a pm-pose, I shall cidl, 
from a large mass of information that I possess, a set of facts, 
that may change the evidence m a way to meet most of the 
varieties of the abuse to wliich. from the practice named, we 
render om'selves Hable. 

It was in the autumn of 1830, that I fii'st saw, in an American 
journal, a short article on myself, extracted from an English 
publication, which was particularly intended to womid my 
feelings and those of my family, and wliich was calculated to 
give the world a very erroneous opinion of, at least, one trait in 
my private character. 

I had become the object of particular resentment to a certain 
portion of the Enghsh, from the ciiTumstance of havmg written 
statement of the causes of the hostility and prejudices which so 
generally exist in theii' coimti-y against om' ovai. This resent- 
ment was greatly increased by the fact that the book I had 
WTitten w^as translated into different languages, and ciiTulated 
throughout Europe. Hitherto they had told then' own story ; 
but an American had now joined issue with diem, and, for a 
novelty, had obtamed a hearing at the bar of Europe. I was 
vituperated in England — a comitry whose reputation for this 
species of warfare is pretty well established — as a matter of 
com'se ; for this I was prepared, having well weighed the matter 
beforehand ; but here I had the pain of seeing an American 
journal stooping to become the instrument of English ribakh'y 
against an absent comitryman, wlio neither merited this particular 
act of injustice, nor any personal attack from the press of his 
own people. It may be well to examine the authority of this 



43 



injurious tale, in order that the compliance of our own journalist 
may stand out in proper relief. 

I regret that a long search has not enabled me to find the pa- 
ragraph in question. It had been quoted into the from 

an English journal, which had found it in a posthumous publica- 
tion of the late Mr. William Hazlitt, a writer whose reputation 
may teach caution to those who are addicted to indiscriminate 
deference for foreigners. But although it is not in my power to 
quote its words, I retain a very distinct recollection of its sub- 
stance. It says that while Sir Walter Scott came to the reading 
rooms of the Messrs. Gagliniani, sitting down modestly in the 
outer room, I was in the habit of running about the streets of 
Paris ( ! ! ) and, furthermore, that in society I was in the practice 
of getting into corners and making faces, as if I would invite the 
company to admire the American Walter Scott. Puerile as all 
this may appear in substance, Mr. William Hazlitt did not he- 
sitate to write it, his successors to print it, and the American 
journal in question to utter it to this country. It is evident on 
its face, that the writer himself had no very distinct idea of the 
nature of my sins, so far as they were connected with the shop of 
the Messrs. Gagliniani and the streets. Mr. Cooper running 
about the streets of Paris, and Sir Walter Scott taking his seat 
in the outer room at Gagliniani's, present no very striking images 
of criminality. 

It is sufficiently plain that Mr. Hazlitt, who was an utter 
stranger to me, had been charged with stories to my prejudice ; 
and, probably feeling well disposed as an Englishman to resent 
the hardihood of an American who had presumed to tell the 
world a few naked truths on the points at issue between the 
countries, he gave vent to his animosity without making a 
particular draft on his logic. I could not desire a better proof 
of what I now wish to impress on my countrymen, than is to be 
found in this very paragraph. Here is a European writer of 
some eminence permitting prejudice to escape him in a form to 
betray itself, and this too without the smallest qualification of 
common sense. What had my running about the streets of 
Paris to do with Sir Walter Scott's sitting down in the outer 
room at Gagliniani's, or vice versa ? I think I can explain this 



44 



matter to the reader. The Messrs. Gaghniani had reprinted in 
the original, from sheets obtained in England, all my tales up to 
the time of my arrival at Paris. It was then necessary that I 
should take the charge of my own works, to secure my right at 
home ; and I had an inter\dew -with one of the Messrs. Gagliniani 
on the subject. I was twice at their establishment. The first 
time, when nothing was determined or indeed proposed, I sat 
down too in the outer room, being fatigued ; and when I was 
rested, I went away, %\'ithout in the least suspecting I had done 
any thing particularly condescending. The second \isit was 
made a short time afterwards, accompanied by a Em'opean friend. 
The interview took place in a garden, and I was treated with 
so much superciliousness, that my stay was short. The gentle- 
man with me expressed strong indignation at the manners of 
Mr. Gagliniani, and observed that, in my place, he would have 
nothing more to do -wdth him. This ad%dce was exactly in con- 
formity with my own feelings, and I have never entered the 
building of the Messrs. Gagliniani from that horn' to this. A 
respectable bookseller assm-ed me a few months after this occm- 
rence, that he had heard Mr. Gagliniani tin-eaten to injure the 
sale of my books, and to do me all the harm he could, — a thi'eat, 
I believe he was very capable of executing, so far as his means 
would allow. This man has probably repeated some of his tales 
to Mr. Hazlitt, who, jdelding to a prejudice, has so far forgotten 
himself as to record them in the puerile manner in which they 
appear ; and an American journal does not hesitate to circulate 
what has thus been witten by a foreigner ! I will furnish 
one proof of the weight that ought to be attached to these 
loose opinions of the Messrs. Gagliniani. When Mr. Horatio 
Greenough and Mr. Morse came up from Italy to Paris, in 1831, 
they went to the Gagliniani's in order to obtain my address. 
On asking for me, as friends, they w^ere led to believe that I was 
an habitu^ of the rooms, and an intimate there ! As to my 
making faces in society, and standing in the corner — heaven save 
the mark ! 1 never saw Mr. Hazlitt but once; and never ex- 
changed a syllable with him in my life. At one of the public 
evenings of Gen. Lafayette, I observed that the latter had been 
conversing with a stranger, who had the air of a student, and, 



45 



as I tliought, of an American. Believing it might be some one 
that I should be glad to know, I approached our illustrious host 
and asked if the conjecture was right. He told me that I was 
mistaken ; that the stranger was Mr. Hazlitt, offering to in- 
troduce me if I wished to make his acquaintance. I declined 
the introduction, in conformity with the rule already named, and 
from which I have never voluntarily departed. There was not 
so much reason, moreover, agreeably to the usages of society, 
why I should have sought an introduction to Mr. Hazlitt, as 
that Mr. Hazlitt should have made the first advances to me. 
But I did not care to make his acquaintance, and there the 
matter might very well have ended. It appears he did not think 
so ; for he wTote me down as a coxcomb, possibly in consequence 
of my showing no empressment to make his acquaintance. The 
reader is not to suppose that Mr. Hazlitt knew of Gen. Lafayette's 
oflPer, for he did not ; but even if he had, it was no excuse for 
calumniating a man with whom he never exchanged a syllable. 
As to his assertion -that I took pride in being called " The 
American Walter Scott," it will be seen it was quite gratuitous, 
and, if permitted to speak for myself on this point, I shall 
merely say that it gave me just as much gratification as any 
nick-name can give a gentleman. There exists in all large 
towns, like London and Paris, a set of very equivocal gentlemen 
and ladies, who aim at bringing themselves into notice without 
much respect for propriety. These people, who ordinarily want 
both breeding and intellect, and not unfrequently character, 
seek out every object of notoriety, less with a view to flatter him 
than to enhance their own importance. They are not easily 
repulsed by the quiet negatives of good breeding, but often m-ge 
their requests to importunity. If denied, they almost invariably 
take their revenge by endeavouring to undervalue the very 
illustration^ as the French have it, that they had previously 
perhaps exaggerated. I was awkwardly placed as respects this 
troublesome class of patrons. A father and a husband, and one 
who did not choose altogether to overlook character in his asso- 
ciations, I have reason to think that a great many enemies were 
made in this way, and that a great nvmiber of idle reports, that 
have reached me, had their rise in the vindictive resentments of 



46 



troublesome adventurers of this sort. I remember a ludicrous 
case of their modesty, which shall be given. It was our mis- 
fortune to make a slight acquaintance with a family of this 
description in one of the Italian towns. The acquaintance, on 
our part, w^as managed with so much circumspection that it was 
confined to the exchange of a few cards ; and when we sent 
the usual signs of leave-taking, previously to quitting the place, 
we congratulated ourselves that the thing was happily ended. 
It seems we reckoned without our host, for, at a moment when 
the trunks were packed, the lodgings discharged, and we w^ere 
actually on the point of departing, we got a visit, I might almost 
say of reproach, for thinking of quitting the place without at- 
tending a rout that the family intended to give the following 
week, and to which we had not even received an invitation. 
The scene was ludicrously provoking. The modest proposal 
was made, and this by people who were now, for the first time, 
within my doors, that a large family should change all its ar- 
rangements, and postpone its departure, on a journey that was 
to transplant it from the centre of Italy to the centre of Ger- 
many, in order to attend "our party!" These people left us 
with the air of those who had received a serious injury, and, 
like Mr. Hazlitt, may have ascribed my obstinacy to the fact 
that I was the " American Walter Scott." A story fomided on 
such an opinion would circulate widely in this country, to any 
man^s disadvantage ; and although in the case of a writer of mere 
fiction the consequences are of importance to no one but himself, 
there might easily occur instances in which the reputations of 
grave defenders of our dearest rights would be undermined by 
the facility of which I complain. 

I forbear to state a great many shameless deceptions that 
have actually been practised, at my individual expense, on the 
American Public. A brief recapitulation of two or three in- 
stances must suffice. 

The " New- York American" published in 1827 the translation 
of a review of the " Prairie," with a view, as was stated in the 
journal, to show the reader the light in wliich the author was 
held by foreigners. This critical notice (if the declaration of 
the man himself is to be believed) was written by an American 



47 



who had changed his rehgion, renounced his country, and who 
shortly afterwards absconded from Paris with a reputation that 
no one can envy. 

In 1828 I saw a statement, in a New- York journal, of an 
opinion that Sir Walter Scott had expressed concerning the 
stand I had taken on national questions, and which opinion was 
intended to lower me in the estimation of my countrymen. This 
statement very evidently came from the enemy. It referred to 
a time when I had never seen Sir Walter Scott. When we did 
meet, literally the first words he uttered was to express his respect 
for the very course which this statement intended to deride. 

In 1829 an account of the manner in which I employed my 
time at Rome was published, although I did not visit that city 
till five months afterwards. 

During a negotiation with a Paris bookseller,* I was rudely 

* A French critic has lately intimated that I have been reaping large emoluments 
from his countrymen. I have never attempted to sell a copyright anywhere but at 
home. It is true that one contract, written in England and sent to France for my 
signature, did express the contrary ; but I remonstrated against the expression, and 
never permitted it to be used again. In England, the sheets of what I had written 
were sold, for the purchaser to do do what he pleased with them. The same thing 
was done for Sir Walter Scott in America, and is constantly practised by other 
English authors. In France, I sold the sheets for translations^ more with a wish 
to control the time of publication, by acting in concert with the publisher, than with 
a view to profit. The trifling amount received went to the uses of another. The 
sheets of three or four books were also sold in Germany, by the same person, and 
for his benefit. He died before the money for one book was received, and it 
remains unpaid to this hour. It will be remembered that there were, in all cases, 
translations previously to these arrangements. 

As respects France, a calculation, made on known data, has shown that I paid 
to the French Government in taxes, during different residences in that country, 
considerably more money than was obtained from the sales of the sheets of fourteen 
books. France and Germany excepted, I never had even any indirect connexion 
with the translations. 

The *' New- York Mirror" has, more than once, adverted to the amount of my re- 
ceipts, with a motive it is not easy to mistake. On what principle the editor of a 
journal can conceive himself authorized to meddle with the private affairs of a 
citizen, I do not know; but the statements of the journal in question on this sub- 
ject, as they relate to myself, are not founded in truth. It remains for the public 
to decide whether it will tolerate or not this meddling with private interests, by 
every one who can get the command of a little ink and a few types. The usurpation 
of such a right is not only English imitation, but imitation of its lowest and least 
commendable school. 



48 



assailed in a French journal, for the purpose, as was afterwards 
admitted, of lessening the value of the publications in my own 
eyes. Such expedients are constantly resorted to in France. 

At Florence, in 1829, a person obtruded himself on me in a 
manner opposed to all the forms of society, impudently announcing 
himself to be a French critic who had done a great deal to 
extend the circulation of my works. I need scarcely say that an 
acquaintance, ushered in with such an introduction, was declined. 
Just before leaving Europe, I accidentally learned that this 
person wrote against me in every journal in which he could 
obtain admission for his articles. I believe the critique lately 
translated by the editor of the "American," from the "Journal des 
Debats," and which he compares with the communication of 
Cassio, in order to show that the latter was not borrowed, to 
have been written by this man. It is true I never saw the article 
in question before it appeared in the "American f but it is written 
in the temper, and has the initial letters of my modest visiter. 
I believe much the greater part of the hostile French critiques 
on myself to have been written, in a spirit of revenge, by this 
man. 

To such impositions is he liable who blindly copies from the 
journals of Europe. I could make this part of the case much 
stronger, but graver matter awaits our consideration. 

The habit of fostering this deference to foreign opinion is 
dangerous to the very institutions under which we live. This is 
the point at which I have aimed fromKKe commencement ; for, 
while I feel that every defender of the action of our own system 
is entitled to fair play, I have never had the weakness to believe 
that any personal interests of my own are a matter of sufficient 
importance to others, to require a publication like the present. 

The practice of deferring to foreign opinion is dangerous to 
the institutions of the country. 

In order to render the case that I wish to present clear, it will 
be necessary to take a short review of the institutions themselves. 

The government of the United States is a peculiar confedera- 
tion of many different bodies politic, for specified objects em- 
bracing certain of the higher functions of sovereignty, and to 
which we have given the appropriate name of a Union. The 



49 



action of this government is obtained by a system of representa- 
tion which, while it is compound and complicated in its elements, 
possesses, in fact, the redeeming and essential quality of simplicity, 
by providing that none but common interests shall be subject to 
its control. And, yet, while we actually possess, under the pro- 
visions of the Constitution, the essential requisite of an ensemble 
in the legal operation and spirit of the institutions, nothing is 
easier than to create an antagonist action, by overstepping the 
limits of the compact. A single glance at the instrument itself 
will explain my meaning. 

A Union, from its very nature, must be a representative form 
of government ; but the mere circumstance that a government is 
representative by no means establishes its character, which de- 
pends on the fact of whom the parties are that are represented. 
Under our system, each State is the arbiter of its own con- 
stituency, subject to the single condition that its form of polity 
shall be that of a Republic. A Republic is a government in 
which the executive power is not hereditary, or in which the laws 
are administered in the name of a Commonwealth instead of that 
of a Prince. Venice, Poland, Frankfort, Unterwalden, Berne 
and Connecticut, are or were all republics. New York, in virtue 
of its reserved rights, has decided that its constituency shall be 
represented on the principle of universal suffrage. Virginia has 
a freehold qualification. Either of these States has a right to 
modify its representation as it shall think best for its own interests. 
In point of fact, it is true the states of this Union are nearly all 
democracies, but they have attained this near approach to har- 
mony by their own acts; for, under the limitations of the Federal 
Constitution, it is quite within the legal competency of the several 
bodies corporate which compose the Union to make that Union 
a representation of democracies, or of aristocracies, or of a 
mixture of both, by altering the characters of the respective con- 
stituencies. Did the government of the United States possess 
more minute powers, therefore, and were the States to exercise 
the privilege just mentioned, making their representations a 
mixture of aristocracies and democracies, disunion or revo- 
lution would inevitably follow. Although there are instances in 
which monarchies and aristocracies coalesce in confederations for 

E 



50 



defined objects, as iii Germany, and in which aristocracies and 
democracies unite for the same pm'poses, there is no instance in 
history in which these antagonist principles have long existed, in 
the full exercise of equal powers, in the form of a consolidated 
communit\\ The struggle between them has always produced 
revolution in fact, whatever may have been done in form. By 
studying, then, the danger of a Union of gi'eat antagonist prin- 
ciples in a consolidated form of government, we are admonished 
to respect the conditions on w^hich the possibility of their co- 
existence is admitted into our own system. Although Virginia, 
and certain other States, may possibly be termed representative 
democracies, when considered solely in reference to their white 
population, they are m truth, even now, mild aristocracies, when 
considered in reference to theu whole population. Immaterial as 
the difference is in most cases between the polity of Vu'ginia and 
that of New York, there are some points of disagreement that 
sufficiently show how easy it is, by transcending the conditions of 
the Union, to awaken a spuit of hostility, and to endanger the 
existence of the compact that now binds them together. To 
these points of difference in principle may be added, as temporary 
causes of disunion, those interests which arise from difference of 
climate and productions. 

Eveiy government has two great classes of obstacles to contend 
with : — the propensities of human nature, and the difficulties that 
arise fi'om its particular manner of controlling its own affaks. 
As the first is an evil that we share in common with all men, it 
may be dismissed without comment ; but in the case of the second, 
it will be useful to allude here to one or two of these particular 
causes of embarrassment as they exist under om' own system. 

The first great difficulty with which tliis government has to 
contend, is, for reasons that are obvious, the accurate discrimina- 
tion between the powers that are granted to tlie Union and those 
that are reserved by the states. The contests which may arise on 
these vital questions can give birth to the only true Whigs and 
Tories of America. The object of this Union was not simply 
government — this w^ possessed in the several states — but it was 
to extend a uniform S3'stem over so large a space, as to reap the 
greatest benefit from its action. 



51 



It has been said by others that the advantages of the Union, 
while they are admitted to be of the last importance, are of a 
purely negative character. This, I apprehend, is little more 
than clotliing a truism in pretending language. The object of 
society in general is to enjoy the advantages of association and 
protection ; to say, therefore, that we should be worse off without 
the Union, is but another method of saying that we are better off 
with. it. In Europe, when the enemies of this system (and they 
are the fi'iends of all others) are driven from position to position 
m the arguments that frequently occur between them and Ameri- 
cans, concerning the merits and probable duration of ouj.' polity, 
they uniformly raise the objection, " that your government is 
only a compromise." Every government is a compromise, or 
something worse. Every community that is not founded on such 
a principle must sacrifice some of its interests to othei's ; and, in 
om- own case, so far from believing that the mutual concessions 
that have been made in the compact of the Union ai'e opposed to 
the true spirit of government^ I shall contend that they are 
proofs that its real objects and just limitations were properly 
understood. Disputes have certainly occm'red, originating in a 
diversity of employments; but we have not yet reached the 
period when all the ordinary interests of civilized society are 
properly balanced. When that period shall arrive, and it cannot 
be distant, I think it will be found that this diversity of employ- 
ments is an additional ligament to the Union. But, while no 
great weight is to be given to a mere diversity of employments, 
every attention is due to those feelings that enter into the daily 
habits and prejudices of men. In this country, facts greatly 
outrun opinion. This is one of the reasons that we see men 
looking behind them to Europe for precedents, instead of being 
\\dlling to conduct their own affairs on their own principles. 
Had ConoTess the right to control those minute interests of 
society that touch the rooted practices of different sections of the 
Union, as they are now controlled by the state legislatures, the 
revenue of the Union would not be worth a year's purchase ; for 
nothing but force would compel the Virginian and the Vermon- 
tese to submit to the same detail of social organization. In such 
a case we should quickly see the \acious influence of the adverse 



52 



principles of democracy and aristocracy. Still, the constitution 
of the United States contemplates the co-existence of these an- 
tagonist forces in our system, through the several states, and it 
fully admits of their representation, for it leaves to each com- 
munity the power to decide on the character of its constituency. 
It follows as a corollary from the proposition, that either the 
framers of the constitution were guilty of the gross neglect of 
admitting into the government of the Union the seeds of its own 
destruction, or that they devised means to obviate the natural 
conflict between prmciples so irreconcileably hostile. They did 
the latter, by limiting the powers of the new government to the 
control of those interests that take the same general aspects 
under every form of civilized society, let the authority emanate 
from what sources it may. This provision, then, is our only 
safeguard, and while it is respected there is little serious ground 
to apprehend the downfal of the system ; but as soon as inno- 
vation shall make any serious inroads on these sacred limits, the 
bond which unites us will be severed. From all this is to be 
inferred the immense importance of keeping the action of the 
general government most rigidly within its defined sphere, to the 
utter exclusion of all construction but that which is clearly and 
-distinctly to be inferred by honest deductions of powers that are 
conceded in terms. 

To the danger which awaits any departure from a severe inter- 
pretation of the constitution, as it is to be apprehended from the 
possibility, and indeed it might be added the actual existence, of 
different elements in the federal constituency, may be added that 
which arises from the facility of action through the organized 
forms of the state governments. The latter, however, when 
considered as distinct from the difference hi these elements them- 
selves, is a danger that arises solely from the inherent vices and 
weaknesses of man. They may or they may not lead to evil, as 
circumstances shall direct ; but the existence of antagonist prin- 
ciples, or of conflicting elements, in the construction of any 
government, must lead to dissension^ unless some unusual pre- 
ventive is devised. As has been seen, in our own case, the 
expedient is a limitation of powers. 

The second embarrassment dependant on its own details, with 



53 



which the federal government has to contend, is the possibility of 
an occasional want of concurrence in views and action between 
the different branches of the constituted authorities. This evil 
is peculiar to our own form of polity. It does not exist in 
England, and is almost the only solid advantage which that 
country, in a political point of view, possesses over our own. 

As I am aware there will be a disposition to cavil at many of 
these positions, I may be permitted a word in the way of explana- 
tion. It has been said that in no other form of government is 
there the same danger from temporary collisions between the 
different branches of power, as in our own. To this would pro- 
bably be objected the examples of England, at certain periods of 
her history, of France, since the restoration, and of divers of 
what are called the constitutional states of Germany; such as 
Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemberg, the Hessen and Nassau. As 
respects the latter, while they are included in the reasons about 
to be given in relation to the two others, the instances they 
afford are entitled to no respect, for they are all under the con- 
trol of an external and a superior force. Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia would interfere to coerce the people,* and the knowledge 
of this fact only has probably prevented revolution in them all. 

England, so far from being an exception to the ground just 
taken, affords the strongest proof of its justice. The revolution 
of 1668 was owing to a struggle between the powers of the state. 
Previously to that period the prerogative was in the ascendant, 
and since that period it has been constantly on the wane, until it 
is completely annihilated as to all practical political authority. 
The laws are still administered in the name of the king it is true, 
his signature is necessary to certain acts, and he is yet called the 
head of the church and state ; but aristocracy has cast its web 
about him with so much ingenuity, that the premier conducts his 
hand, the chancellor wields his conscience, and parliament feeds 
him, until he is reduced to the condition of a well dressed lay- 
figure. There undeniably was a contest between parliament and 
the prerogative during the four reigns that preceded the last, and 



* France also might now be added to the list of those states that would directly 
or indirectly, lend its influence to effect the same object. 



54 



the result goes to prove the very position I have taken, Thi^ 
contest has wrought the effects of revohition, perverting the 
government from a monarchy to an oligarchy. The entne 
authority of the state, even to that of dictating his ministers to 
the king, is virtually in the hands of parliament. Open, palpable 
revolution has been carefully avoided, simply because the tendency 
of such convulsions is to elevate the low and to depress the great, 
and it was the wish of the aristocracy to effect its purpose by in- 
direct means, and by the fictions of legality. The ascendancy^ 
of the thousand families who control the British Empire has been 
obtained under the cry of liberty. 

As the situation of France has not admitted of as much legal 
fi'aud as that of England, her example, since the restoration, is 
still more plainly in favour of the truth of our position. The 
contest betw^een the crown and the chambers led Louis XVIIL 
to alter the charter ; and a few years later, when opinion had 
gathered force, and legislation began to assmne most of its ordi- 
nary attributes, his successor lost his cromi in making a sunilar 
attempt. 

Thus far, in quoting the examples of the European states, it 
has been the intention to show merely the inevitable tendency of 
struggles between the executive and the legislatm-e, considered in 
connexion with leading principles, and under the supposition that 
the constituency and the representation are of the same mind. 
In the cases of what are called in Em'ope representative govern- 
ments, the eventual* danger has been somewhat lessened, and 
the temporary inconvenience removed, by a very simple expedient. 
The cromi has power to prorogue or dissolve the legislature. 
The reasons, therefore, why the embarrassment that arises from 
temporary collisons between the executive and the legislatm'e is 
greater in America than in England or France, are to be found 
in the fact that the chambers can be dissolved, and the fact that 



* In England the danger has been averted by virtually reducing all the powers of 
the government to one body. The constituency of England is, as to political effect, 
tlie property of the representation. In cases where the landlord does not control, the 
open vote gives the richest man nearly the certainty of being elected. The exception? 
do not affect the rule. 



55 



should the new elections be adverse to those who wield the power 
of the crown, the chambers, in their turn, compel a change of 
ministers. The alternative, as was the case in France in 1830, 
is revolution. It is unnecessary to say that the executive of this 
country has no power to dissolve Congress, or Congress any power 
to dissolve a ministry. The inevitable consequences of - the con- 
tinuance of such collisons, viz., revolution, or changes equal in 
effect to revolution, is obviated only by the frequency of the 
elections. 

We vdll return to our own polity. 

It will be admitted that the government of the United States 
is one of powers delegated for limited and defined purposes. Its 
authority is to be found only in the constitution. Precedent, as 
it is derived from our own practice, is valuable merely as it has 
been established on sound principles, and, as it is derived from the 
practices of others, is to be received with a cautious examination 
into its fitness for our peculiar condition. 

The highest authority known to the constitution, in its spirit, 
is the constituency. It sits in judgment over all, and approves or 
condemns at pleasure. All the branches of the deputed govern- 
ment, executive, legislative, and judicial, are equally amenable 
to its decisions. It has retained the power of even changing the 
characters of its several servants ; of placing the authority of the 
president in the hands of a committee of congress, or in any other 
depository it shall select ; of dispensing with the judiciary alto- 
gether, or of modifying its duties at pleasure ; of re-modelling 
the legislature, and of issuing to it new commissions, as it shall see 
fit. The only restraint it has laid on its own acts, is a provision 
pointing out the form in which its will is to be expressed, and a 
solitary condition touching that delicate point of the rights of the 
several states, which secures to each an equal representation in 
the senate. When the constituency and the people are identical, 
this becomes political liberty. 

The highest attributes of the constituency are delegated to the 
legislature, whose powers are as carefiilly and as distinctly defined 
as the nature of things would w^ell permit. The judiciary and 
executive are, in a great degree, subordinate to the will of the 
latter, on which there is no restraint but the provisions of the 



56 



compact, and from which, when legitimately exercised, there is 
no appeal but to the constituency. Its members act with no 
other responsibility than that which they owe to theii' own body, 
and to the judgments that may be passed upon then* measures by 
those who issued their commissions. Unlike the executive and 
the judiciary, they are liable to no impeachment.* WHien the 
irresponsible nature of such a power, divided as it is among many, 
is taken in connexion with its extent, it is very obvious that far 
more danger is to be apprehended from the legislature, through 
innovations on the principles of the constitution under the forms 
of law, than from either of the two other branches of the govern- 
ment. They all exercise delegated powers, it is true, and powers 
that can be perverted from their legitimate uses ; but congress is 
the least restrained, while it possesses the highest authority. It 

/ follows of necessity that it is the branch of this government most 
likely to abuse its trust. 

Obvious as are these facts, what has just been said is not the 
popular manner of viewing the subject. . The English aristocracy 
has so long been innovating on the prerogative of the crown, 
under the cry of libert}', and the theory of the English constitution 
has so artfully favoured such a mystification, that we have caught 
the feelings of another country, and are apt to consider those to 
whom we have confided the greatest authority, under the least re- 

V sponsibility, the exclusive guardians of our liberties ! Such an 
opinion can only be entertained by a sacrifice of both fact and 
reason. The constituency is its own protector, or our pretension 
to real liberty would be idle. The executive is a creature of our 
own forming, and for our o\mi good, and it is manifestly a weak- 

y ness to confound hmi, or his authority, with a prince and his 
prerogative, the latter being based on the divine right. 

In a monarchy, power is supposed to be the prerogative of the 
cro\Mi ; and what is called liberty is no more than concessions 



* This is an instance in which imitation has led us astray from the commence- 
ment. What sufficient reason can be given why the representative, in a system like 
ours, should not be tried and punished for an abuse of trust, as well as a judge, or 
the president ? In countries in which the representative is either an advocate or a 
master, there is good cause for his impunity, but in ours, where he is only a servant, 
there is none. 



57 



obtained from the sovereign in behalf of the subject. Under reall} 
free institutions, government itself is no more than a concession ol 
powers for the benefit of protection and association. It is very 
possible that these mutual concessions should produce an exactly 
similar set of subordinate ordinances or laws, and yet one govern- 
ment shall enjoy real freedom, and the other possess no more than 
its shadow. The essence of liberty is in the ultimate power to 
control, as residing in the body of the nation. Its form is ex- 
hibited through the responsibility of the public agents. 

The inference that I could wish to draw from this brief state- 
ment is the absolute necessity of construing the Constitution of 
the United States on its own principles ; of rigidly respecting the 
spirit as well as the letter of its provisions ; and of never attempt- 
ing to avert any evil which may arise under the practice of the 
govermnent, in any other manner than that which is pointed out 
by the instrument itself. On no other terms can this Union be 
perpetuated ; and on these terms, there is reason to believe that 
our prospect of national happiness and power exceeds that of any 
other people on the globe. 

I now propose to mention two or three cases in which the habit 
of admitting foreign examples into the administration of our own 
system, has violated the essential principles of the great national 
compact. I shall commence with the executive, although it 
might not be difficult to show that the habit of reasoning of 
American interests on English principles has led, in some parti- 
culars, to the original error of modelling the institutions themselves 
into forms but indifferently suited to our actual condition. As 
my space is limited, I shall endeavour to be brief. 

The appointing power of the President is contained in Art. 11. 
Sec. 2, of the Constitution, and is expressed in these words : — 
" And he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent 
of the senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers 
and consuls," &c. &c. So far as these particidar officers are con- 
cerned, there is no other constitutional mode of appointing them, 
unless under the provision of clause 3rd, same section, which goes 
on to say, that " the President shall have power to fill all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the senate, by granting 
commissions which shall expire at the end of theii' next session." 



68 



This provision was evidently made to prevent the necessity of 
calHng the senate together uselessly, and, at the same time, to 
prevent the public service from suffering. 

Two practices have prevailed in the government as to the 
manner of deciding what offices shall be created. In the one 
case, it is commanded by law that there shall be certain offices, 
and it becomes the duty of the President and Senate to name the 
persons who are to fill them. In the other, it is left to the dis- 
cretion of those who hold the appointing power to settle the 
question. Congress retaining the check of refusing the money by 
which they are to be paid. In the latter case it is understood 
that the appointment is legal, although a salary should be refused, 
provided the nominee will serve for nothing. As respects foreign 
ministers, their number, rank, and destination, have never been 
determined in any other manner than by the simple exercise of 
the appointing power. 

Mr. W. C. Rives, of Virginia,^ was regularly and legally 
appointed a minister to the court of France, in 1829. In 1832, 
he returned home, and resigned. Soon after, Mr. Leavitt Harris 
was appointed, hy the President and Senate, a charge d'affaires, to 
fill the vacant mission. In the absence of any law to the con- 
trary, this was the only method of determining what the rank of 
that mission should be. Some months later, and during the 
recess of the senate, Mr. Harris either resigned or was removed, 
and Mr. Livingston was appointed an Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary in his place. Whence did the President 
derive his power for making this appointment ? I see no other 
source than an inference that might be drawn from the appro- 
priations ; but can Congress, even by a direct law, give a power 
to the President to name a citizen to an original office during the 
recess of the senate ? It had been determined that the mission to 
France should be that of a charge d'affaires, precisely in the same 
manner that it had been determined that a great many other 
missions should be lowered in rank ; and the President, it appears 
to me, had just as much legal warranty for removing the charge 
d'affaires to Colombia, during the recess of the senate, and for 
appointing a minister in his place, as he had to name Mr. Living- 
ston to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation or removal 



59 



of Mr. Harris. When a lieutenant of the navy dies, the President 
surely has no power to appoint a captain to succeed him, even 
though the appropriations might meet the difference in the res- 
pective amounts of pay. The practice is liable to great abuse. 
Mr. Erving was nominated as minister to Constantinople, but 
was rejected by the senate, on the ground that the rank of the 
mission should be limited to that of charge d'affaires. Mr. David 
Porter was eventually appointed in the latter capacity. Now, if 
the doctrine prevail that the President has a right to name a 
minister to succeed a charge during the recess of the senate, what 
was there to prevent him from pursuing his original intention, by 
removing Mr. Porter, and putting Mr. Erving in his place, with 
the rank of minister ?* 

Take a much stronger case. 

Consuls can only be appointed hy the President with the consent of 
the Senate, unless to fill vacancies in the recess of the latter, and 
then the appointment can only be made by the President. The 
language of the Constitution on this point will not admit of miscon- 
ception. In 1833, Mr. Barnet, then consul at Paris, died. Mr. 
Niles had been left charge des affaires of the legation a short time 
previously. The difference between a charge d'affaires and a 
person left charge des affaires of a legation is very material, or, 
rather, under our system, it ought to he very material. A charge 
d'affaires is the lowest officer in the ranks of diplomacy that is 
ever charged with a mission. He can execute the same political 
powers as an ambassador or the highest ; but a secretary left 
charge des affaires is no more than one who remains to keep 
open the communications between the two countries, and receives 
his appointment from the minister. It may be questioned 
whether one can be legally appointed at all under our compact. 
Mr. Rives himself was no other than an agent of the American 
states commissioned to execute certain defined functions. When 
he left the mission with Mr. Niles, the latter became, in one sense. 



* It is scarcely necessary to say, that nothing ofFensive is intended to the gentleman 
appointed, for whose talents I have the greatest respect ; nor is any particular blame 
attached to the present executive, for the looseness of the practice of the government 
had crept into a precedent. 



1 



60 



his deputy. The commission which the latter held as secretary of 
legation, gave him no legal claim to the trust which Mr. Rives 
might, had he seen fit, have confided to another. On the death 
of Mr. Barnet, Mr. Niles, in virtue of the powers contained in the 
regular instructions, (as I understand,) appointed a consul to 
succeed him. Here, then, we have an office, which the constitu- 
tion expressly says shall be filled only by the President and senate, 
except in the case of a single contingency, and in the event of 
that contingency, by the President alone, filled by a substitute's 
substitute. 

I understand that the commanders of the Mediterranean 
squadrons are instructed to appoint consuls, and that they have 
often done so. In one instance, there is good reason to think 
that the functions of a consul were for a long time executed by a 
woman, who had no other commission than her dying husband's 
request. 

The foreign agents of the government are in the habit of 
naming attaches to the different legations, and the consuls fre- 
quently commission what are called vice-consuls. 

An attache is either an officer or he is not. If an officer, he is 
appointed directly in the face of the constitution ; if not, his ap- 
pointment is an imposition on foreign countries, who believe him 
to be one, and treat him accordingly. Great injustice is done to 
the institutions and its example, by the practice of naming 
attaches. Many intelligent men and sound Americans have un- 
questionably obtained the appointment; but, in too many in- 
stances, vain and ignorant young persons seek the distinction, get 
into a society that turns their heads, and begin to deride the re- 
publican institutions which they are thought to represent. To 
such a pass did this abuse extend, that serious thoughts were 
entertained by some of our countrymen, who were in Europe a 
year or two since, to address a memorial to Congress on the 
subject. Even the President, as the law stands, has no power to 
appoint a vice-consul, and yet there are some scores of these 
functionaries in existence ! No civil officer of this government 
can be appointed legally, except in one of two manners — viz., 
either by the President and senate, as pointed out in the consti- 
tution, or by the President himself, the head of a department, or 



61 



a court of law, in virtue of an act of Congi-ess. I found that the 
consular instructions supposed a power in the consul to appoint 
his agents, who, in many cases, perform all his duties. I did as 
others had done before me, and named an agent ; but seeing the 
error, as has been said in an earlier part of this letter, the office 
was resigned. I mention the circumstance merely to show that 
what is here advanced is advanced on principle, and with no view 
to criminate any particular man, or any set of men. 

All these abuses, and a great many more of a similar character 
that might be named, arise from the habit of seeking authorities 
for our practice among other nations, instead of taking those 
which form the compact between the states. The King of Eng- 
land, or those who wield the prerogative in his name, are the 
fountains of honour, and they make such appointments as they 
please, and in any mode or form they shall see fit, and any ob- 
jection raised to the course taken by our government is usually 
met by some precedent derived fi-om the usages of England. He 
who points to the constitution is answered by a saying of Mr. 
Burke, or a decision of my Lord Mansfield ! These cases have 
been mentioned because they have occurred openly, and even 
party spirit has so far acquiesced in the authority of European 
precedent, that it has never assailed those who have been the 
agents of permitting their existence. 

Let us see if Congress itself is exempt fi'om the sinister influence 
of foreign example. . 

The late events connected with the removal of the deposits are 
known to every one. The President directs the secretary of the 
treasm-y to withdraw the public monies fifom the Bank of the 
United States, and on receiving a refiisal, he removes the incum- 
bent, and fills the place with an oflBcer disposed to comply. This 
officer, agreeably to a provision of the law which gave him autho- 
rity to perform the act, makes a report of his reasons to Congress. 
The senate of the United States, after a long debate on the sub- 
ject matter of the report, passes a separate resolution, declaring, 
in substance, that the interference of the President in this affair 
was unconstitutional. To this vote the President asks leave to 
enter a solemn protest, principally on the ground that it is, in 
effect, a judgment pronounced without the forms of law. 



62 

With the legahty of the course pursued by the President, or 
with the justness of the exceptions he has taken to the vote of the 
senate, so far as they relate to its judicial effect, the objects of this 
letter have no connection. But as every citizen who expresses 
his opinions with due moderation, and with a suitable deference 
to the sentiments of others, has a right to lay his objections to the 
acts of any or every department of the government before the 
public, I shall attempt to show, that, by the letter of the consti- 
tution, by a fau' construction of its spii'it, and fi^om all just 
reasoning thi'ough inferences to be di'aTsii from the good and evil 
of the step it has taken, the senate of the United States had no 
authority whatever to pass any separate resolution at all on the 
subject, whether in favour of. or against the conduct of the exe- 
V cutive ; and that all the authority which can or has been quoted 
to the contrary, is derived from a state of things so essentially 
diflPerent from om' own. as to be valueless, or worse than none. 
The reader will at once perceive that if this position can be made 
good, it yriR be in perfect conformity with the general di'ift of this 
letter. 

In analyzing the authority of Congress, we are to look nowhere 
but to tlie constitution. Bm'ke and De Lolme and Hallam were 
all able wi'iters ; Pitt, Fox, and many others, have been eloquent 
speakers, but neither of them had any concern ^ith the compact 
that binds these states together. It is purely a bargain of our own 
makmoj, and it should be a bargain of our own construina^.''' So 

CI-' o o 

far as precedent is connected with mere parliamentaiy usage, m 
reference to forms only, and to principles as they relate to forms, 
the authority of the statesmen named may be entitled, with many 
exceptions, to theh weight : but when there is question of the 
great principles of om' government, or of its peculiar action, 
authorities from such a source are to be received like advice from 
an enemv. The liberty of which they speak is not our liberty. 
It means no more than power wrested from the repository which 
has held it for ages by the accidents and usages of monarchy 
and feodality, and is meant to descend no lower than a particular 
caste. Tlie liberty with which we are concerned is regularly 
based on the foundations of the people, and is intended for tlieir 
benefit. 



63 



The senate of the United States has passed a separate resolu- 
tion, pronouncing the conduct of the President to be unconstitu- 
tional in reference to a certain exercise of authority. On the 
mere merits of this step the public mind is di\dded, although very 
few indeed question its right to take a separate resolution, except 
as it is prejudging a case on which its members may be called 
to decide as triers under an impeachment. So rooted is the 
feehng that the legislature is the gTiardian of our libertiesf that 
most men do not see that, under a system like om- own, every 
particle of power it exercises is abstracted from the consti- 
tuent ! The concessions that have been made to Congress may 
all have been made in the interest of order and good govern- 
ment; but, so far as a bHnd jealousy is in any manner to be 
justified, it is no more than common sense to take care that 
it should be felt on our own side of the question. Let us now 
look for the powers under which the senate has acted. 

The manner in which the constitution has delegated power to 
Congress is of some moment m such an investigation. That 
instrument commences with saying, that all legislative authority 
shall reside in the tico houses of Congress. It then speaks of the 
organization and of the elements of the respective bodies, and of 
the forms of elections. An entu'e section is next devoted to the 
separate powers of each house. If any direct authority for the 
vote of the senate is contained in the constitution, it is natm-ally 
to be looked for in this section.* The only clause that contains 
any thing, which the most fertile imagination has attempted to 
torture into authority to take a vote of censure on the acts of the 
President, is the second. By the second clause " each house may 
determine the rules of its proceedings," &c. But to determine 
the manner of performing functions so obviously does not infer a 
right to create them, that this opinion is entitled to no respect. 

In those sections which treat of the organization of the re- 
spective houses, there are clauses giving to each body the power 
to choose its own officers, with one exception in the case of the 
senate, and which give to the house of representatives the sole 
power of impeachment, and to the senate the right to sit in 



* See Note D, end of pamphlet. 



64 



judgment. The constitution, in speaking of the manner of 
electing the President, refers the choice to the house of represent- 
atives in a certain contingency, and it gives to the senate the 
power to count the votes that come from the electoral colleges. 
These several clauses embrace all the powers directly gi'anted to 
each house to act separately, that is contained in the insti'ument 
from which all the power they have to act at all is derived. It is 
a just inference from the minute specification of the powers which 
are expressly granted, many of which are of a kind that were 
indispensably requisite for the action of the respective houses, 
and might safely have been left to constiTiction, if it had been 
intended to leave any p7HncipIe whatever to construction, that no 
other authority was in any case to be exercised by either house of 
Congress separately. Even the power to keep a separate record 
of its own proceedings is granted to each house in terms, a right 
that might fairly enough be supposed to be incidental to that of 
proceeding at all. It must be conceded, then, that the constitu- 
tion has granted no direct authority to the senate to pass a simple 
vote of censure on the acts of the President, or on those of the 
meanest citizen of the land. Unless it can be found in a just 
and fan- construction, therefore, of some power that has been 
directly granted, we shall be driven to our old enemy imitation,' 
and imitation of a system so opposed to our own as to render 
it doubly hazardous. 

Construction is a fruitful source of power. The constitution 
has provided, however, an important check against its abuse, by. 
declaring that all powers which are not delegated to the United 
States, nor prohibited to the states, " are reserved to the states 
respectively, or to the people By the people is meant, as a 
matter of course, the constituency. Common prudence would 
seem to say, that construction, under a compact like our own, 
should be jealously limited to clear inferences fi'om the powers 
that are granted in terms. In this view of the case, the act of 
the senate can be sustained by no sufficient authority, since there 
is no authority expressly granted to that body to act separately 
that can, in any manner, be tortured into such an inference. 
This difficulty has been foreseen, and they who sustain the con- ^ 
duct of the senate, depend on precedent and general principles, or 
maintain that its act was merely preparatory to ordinary legislation. 



65 



There can be no doubt that Congress (not the senate alone) 
had a right to act on the report of the Secretary of the treasury 
in relation to the removal of the deposits. It had full power to 
order them to be restored to the Bank of the United States. 
This could be done, it is to be presumed, under the spirit of the 
charter, by a simple resolution or order. But the constitution 
commands that " every order, resolution, or vote," which requires 
the concurrence of the two houses, that of adjournment alone 
excepted, shall be sent to the President for his approval, as in 
the case of a bill ; and in the event of his disapproving, that it 
shall be carried by a two-thirds vote in each house, before it take 
effect. No one can believe that the President would approve of 
a resolution to restore the deposits, or of a vote of censure on 
himself. It is matter of notoriety, that the house of represent- 
atives is of the same way of thinking. An attempt at legislation, 
therefore, would have failed. This is probably the reason that there 
has been no attempt at legislation.* The vote of the senate is a 
simple, unqualified vote of censure, as to its effect, and in its 
form it is the mere expression of an opinion of that body. To 
say that it has any connexion with ordinary legislation is to 
insult the meanest intellect. We are consequently driven to 
general principles, or to precedent, for the authority we are 
seeking. 

- Precedent derived from our own practices may be adduced 
in extenuation of even an erroneous procedure, beyond a ques- 
tion ; but, unless the proceedure itself can be justified on prin- 
ciples that arise from our own state of things, so far as the 
argument of this letter is concerned, the more the practice has 
■prevailed, the greater is the evil which it is its object to expose. 

It is claimed as a parliamentary usage, from time immemorial, 
for legislative bodies to express their opinions on public measures 
in this mode. The justification of the senate is rested on this 
circumstance more than on any other, and certainly it is the best 
attempt at justification that has been made. Let us examine its 
validity. 

* Notice of an attempt at legislation on this subject has just been given by the 
very senator who introduced the vote of censure, a circumstance that of itself shows 
he did not keep legislation in view in the original step. 

F 



66 



The practices of the colonial legislatures must be identified 
with those of parliament, for the struggle, or the pretence of a 
struggle, between the prerogative of the crown and the franchises 
of the people was common to all, inducing the same modes of 
attack and defence. The practices of the state legislatures, if 
opposed to the principles of their respective governments, or not 
warranted by direct concessions from the people, are liable to the 
same objection as the act of the senate, and only go to prove the 
extent of the evil, like precedents derived from Congress. 

Were the argument to rest here, I should be prepared to say 
for one, that the senate, having no sufficient power delegated by 
the constitution, overstepped its authority in passing any resolu- 
tion on the subject at all, as unconnected with legislation, and in 
the absence of the forms of impeachment, let precedent decide 
as it might. I do not believe that Congress itself, far less one 
of its bodies separately, can find authority in the constitution for 
passing a resolution of this nature, with no other view than a 
mere expression of its opinion ; and I cannot but think, that the 
constitution of the United States ought to prevail against pre- 
cedent, let it come from what source it may. But it is my inten- 
tion to give the argument all the benefit it can receive from the 
practices of parliament, reserving the right to make use of prin- 
ciples to defeat their effect, for such an illustration is the precise 
point to which I most desire to bring the reader. 

It will be conceded that some legitimate good must be the 
object of every general construction of power in a state, or the 
measure becomes an act of tyranny as well as of usurpation. 

The two houses of parliament do pass resolutions, both separate 
and concurrent, censuring the conduct of those who are termed 
" his majesty's ministers," but who are, in truth, the ministers of 
parliament. They censure those who are responsible to them- 
selves, who are appointed at their pleasure, and who retire before 
their frown. An honourable member of the senate has lately 
said that he was not his senator, in allusion to the executive, and 
it was well said. He might have gone farther, and have added, 
nor am I my own senator. He is our senator, and the President 
is our President, and we commissioned both to discharge certain im- 
portant public trusts, under very positive limitations of authority. 



07 



There is a motive for the censure of parliament. It is a test of 
parties, and the precursor of a change. Either parliament or 
ministers must yield. There is, in fact, no popular constituency 
in the question. The peers represent themselves, and the com- 
~ mons represent the money of the rich, that of the peers included. 
So closely was the price of a seat in the lower house calculated, 
before the late reform, that it was generally estimated it cost 
£1000 a year, taking into the account the chances of a dissolution. 
A vote of censure on the king cannot be passed, for parliament 
still respects the fictions of the constitution, and it would be use- 
less ; but votes of censure on the ministers are common : they are 
the usual method of ascertaining the strength of parties, and the 
ordinary mode of producing a change of measures, or, at least, of 
men. 

What has all this in common with the^-principles or the ordi- 
nances of the American constitution ?^ The censures of Congress 
cannot drive a President from his chair, or even a Secretary from 
his cabinet. They both virtually hold their places by the same 
tenure as that of Congress itself. They are equally the servants 
of the people, who have reserved to themselves the right to judge 
of their conduct. But while the vote of the senate can do no good, 
it may and has done much harm.'^ It has brought into action the 
second great embarrassment peculiar to the details of this form of 
government — that of creating dissension between its different 
branches — by which the interests not of " his majesty," but of the 
people, suffer. The supplies of this very year have been so long 
delayed, in consequence of the determination of the opposition to 
embarrass the executive, according to the English mode, that in- 
dividuals have been compelled to pay heavy penalties for the 
benefit of the imitation. Government cannot be sued,* and con- 
tractors must await its justice. It is not agreeable, however, to 
pay three per cent, a month for money that would be forthcoming 
if Burke and Chatham, and the Parliamentary History of Eng- 

* There is another instance of error, arising from imitation at the commence- 
ment. In countries in which the rights of the subject are no more than concessions 
from power, we can understand why a government should not be sued ; but under 
our polity, reason and justice would both say that every facility should be given to 
the weak to enforce their claims against the strong. 



68 



land, were less in the hands of some of our legislators, and the 
constitution more. 

The cry of withholding the supplies has reached the press, and, 
in some cases, the people. If the supplies are not just in them- 
selves, if they are extravagant in amount, or prodigal in expenditure, 
they should never have been granted at all ; but for a legislator to 
manifest that he is opposed to granting them merely with a view 
to embarrass an administration, is a direct insult on the intelli- 
gence of the constituency. It is not withholding its supplies, but it 
is withholding our suppHes. Parliament, by adopting a system of 
withholding the supplies, has annihilated the prerogative, except 
as it is wielded for its own purposes. The President will still be 
President, though Congress refuse to vote a dollar, and the faith 
of this nation will be violated if his salary be not punctually paid. 
If he commit grave faults pending the legal term of service, im- 
peachment and punishment are the remedies, and every four 
years the people sit in judgment on the merits of his acts. This 
measure of withholding the supplies is peculiarly English ; it is 
the means by which parliament has destroyed whatever of balance 
\/the government ever had, and is the simplest, the most obvious, 
and the most dangerous of all the modes of legislative usurpation. 
It is time to begin to consider our legislators in their true charac- 
ter — not as sentinels to watch the executive merely, but as those 
of the public servants the most hkely to exceed their delegated 
authority. 

I am quite prepared for the feeling to which these remarks will 
be likely to give birth. It is one of the prominent evils of this 
system of imitation, ^that the minds of the constituency themselves 
get to be poisoned.^ A false direction is given to the public watch- 
fulness. Already we have the President, an officer created for our 
public benefit, compared to the King of England. ^ It may be 
useful here to institute a short comparison between the authorities 
of these two functionaries. The king, it is true, now merely repre- 
sents the prerogative, the latter being wielded at the will of par- 
liament, but we will consider him as he exists in theory, and as 
other kings yet exist in fact. 

The right of the king to his crown is derived from descent, and 
is inalienable. He can declare war and make peace. He is the 



69 



head of the church, the fountain of honour, and can do 
no wrong. Here is certainly no resemblance to a President. 
Both command the armies, but on very different conditions. 
The President is merely a generalissimo, Congress being an aulic 
council to direct him as it shall please, and he must do very much 
as it shall direct ; being, in his military capacity, virtually as much 
under the law as the lowest corporal in the ranks. Parliamentary 
usurpation may have reduced the King of England as low, it is 
true, compelling him as civil king to bind himself as military 
king ; but it is not so in France, and other countries where the 
prerogatives are still exercised by the sovereigns. The King of 
France can raise as many men by enlistment as he shall see fit, 
provided he can find means to pay them. The army is his army. 
In such a state of things, there may be a good reason for with- 
holding the supplies. As keepers of the public moneys, the 
trusts and duties of both King and President are the same. It is 
no more than to name competent agents, and so far from being 
a benefit, in both cases, it is an onerous charge ; such a charge as 
men in commercial life ordinarily asked two and a half per cent, 
on the amounts received and paid, for assuming, and this, too, 
with the additional advantage of mingling them, for the time 
being, with their private resources. The King can do no wrong ; 
the President is responsible for his acts, both by the ordinary law 
and under an impeachment. It foUow^s that there is no great 
analogy between a President and a King. ^ 

To return to the act of the senate. We have already considered 
it in relation to its authority, and we will now look for its real 
character. It is not legislative beyond a doubt. It is neither 
more nor less than a solemn expression of an opinion by that 
honourable body, in its collected capacity. As, in the absence of 
direct authority, it is required to justify the act on principles ap- 
plicable to our especial condition, we must look to all its probable 
results in estimating its propriety. 

An expression of an opinion that has so clear a tendency to 
embarrass the action of government, especially created for the 
sole benefit of the constituency, should have some high counter- 
vailing advantage. It cannot have been uttered to the world 
for the information of the senators themselves, or in order that 



70 



they may know theii* own. miiids. It was not expected, at least 
not plausibly expected, that it would cause the President to 
retrace his steps ; to re-appoint Mr. Duane, and to restore the 
deposits. If such was the intention, the failui'e might have 
been foreseen. From this quarter it has produced a protest, and 
feelings between the President and senate of which much evil 
and no good to the public service are to be the consequences. 
But, I shall be informed, it is telling the nation what the senate 
thinks of the conduct of its executive. This is very true, and 
in reply, as was very reasonably to be anticipated, the President, 
in his turn, has told the nation what he thinks of the conduct 
of the senate.*^ It remains for the nation now to say what it 
thinks of the conduct of both. If the senate has passed this 
resolution for the benefit of the nation, (and all its formal acts 
have a false direction that have not tliis tendency,) it remains 
to be seen m what manner. We have not been told a fact, but 
the senate's opinion of a fact. The fact was as w^ell knoA^n to us 
all as to the senate itself. 'Why has the senate given us its 
opinion in this matter ? In order to extract om's in reply ? At 
the proper time our opinion would have been made kno\^Ti, 
without this interference of the senate. But, it will be said, 
the senate is a learned and an intellectual body, and its opinion 
will have weight vdth the constituency, and influence the public 
mind. There has been a great deal said, and said cleverly too, 
on the subject of the right of the constituent to instruct his 
representative, but tliis doctrine savom's strongly of a right in 
the representative to instruct his constituent ! The senate was 
never commissioned to act in this manner on the pubhc will, and 
the practice is hable to the grossest abuses. If the President 
can be censured, candidates for the presidency can be censured 
too. Means will never be wanting, and the two houses of Con- 
gress will degenerate into mere electioneering caucuses. 

But is not this a free country, freer than England? — is not 
Congress our representation, and shall not Congress do that which 
parliament does daily ? God forbid that Congress should ever 
have power to do that which parliament does daily ; and, on the 
other hand, God forbid that the President should not do daily 
that which the King of England (of his own will) cannot do at 



71 



all ! Parliament has seized upon the executive powers, and ren- 
dered the king a cj^her ; it wields the prerogative in his name ; 
it has pulled down and set up dynasties : it is both law and 
constitution ; it has established a religion and is about to destroy 
one ; it has rendered the judges dependant on its pleasure ; and, 
quite lately, it has even changed its own elements ! Parliament 
is absolute. Who is there bold enough in this nation to say . 
that he wishes Congi'ess to possess the powers of parliament ? ^ 
Congress is composed of w^hat the lawyers call " attorneys in 
fact," and when we see it overstepping in the least its dele- 
gated functions, our feelings should be like those of one who 
has authorized another to sell, in his name, a single acre of his 
land, and who learns that his agent has so interpreted his au- 
thority, that he is about to dispose of the whole estate. 

If the President could do no more than the King of England 
can do in fact, (putting fictions out of the question,) we should 
be incurring the evils of periodical elections, and paying 25,000 
dollars a year to one of our own citizens to live in the White 
House and do nothing. 

If the vote of the senate is not authorized by any direct 
power delegated by the constituency in the great national com- 
pact ; if it cannot be justified by fair deductions fi-om any power 
that is so delegated ; and if a just consideration of the uses and 
origin of similar authority, as it is exercised in other counti'ies, 
shows that its exercise here, on the same principles, is opposed 
to the spirit of om* own institutions, where are we to look for 
the vindication of the step of that body? It can be found 
only in precedents derived from our own practice ; and pre- 
cedents of evil derived fi-om our own practice, and founded on 
the usages of the English parliament, only make the case it is 
my wish to present so much the stronger. 

The evil is not limited to the vote of the senate. The house 
of representatives, as anxious to support as the senate is to ^ 
condemn the course of the executive, has sent a committee to 
investigate the affairs of the Bank, and, the directors of the 
institution refusing to acquiesce in the measure, a resolution is 
introduced to arrest the whole body for contempt. Whence 
is the power derived by wliich Congress itself can take such a 



72 



Step ? Why parhament does it ! But it has been seen that 
parhament does a great deal that it would be considered tyranny 
and usurpation for Congress to attempt. The constitution gives 
no power to Congress to arrest any one for contempt. Each 
house is master of its own hall, and there its police power ends. 
But the constitution gives Congress power to pass all laws neces- 
sary to carry the defined powers into effect ; and this measure 
is required to extort information that is important to the public 
good. The constitution has given this authority to Congress, 
and it will be time enough for any branch of the government to 
use it, when Congress, by law, has vested it with the necessary 
authority. 

It would be more respectable, and far safer, were we to make 
an effort to conduct our own affairs on our own principles.^ If 
this Union shall ever be destroyed by any error or faults of an 
internal origin, it will not be by executive, but by legislative 
usurpation. The former is easily enough restrained, while the 
latter, cloaked under the appearance of legality and repre- 
sentation, is but too apt to carry the public sentiment with it. 
England has changed its form of government, from that of a 
monarchy to that of an exceedingly oppressive aristocracy, pre- 
cisely in this manner. 

The habit of listening to another people, and of imbibing 
their prejudices and peculiar ways of thinking, does not limit its 
injury to the representation of the country. The constituency 
itself becomes tainted by the communion,'' and ceases to judge 
of its own interests on its own principles. This is the penalty 
we pay for being the younger and the less important nation. 
The question that has just been considered furnishes proof of 
what is said. 

The contest between the executive and the senate has very 
naturally aroused the friends of the respective parties, and strange 
political heresies are rife among us. My limits will admit of but 
one or two brief examples. 

In his protest, the President lays down the doctrine, that the 
keeping of the public moneys must be confided to those whose / 
tenure of office is left to his official discretion, and whose manner 
of discharging their trusts must of necessity be submitted to his. 



73 



supervision and approval. Now against this plain, constitutional 
position, there is raised a cry from one extremity of the Union to 
the other, which, to say the least, is not of the most prudent and 
reflecting character. It is highly probable that some precedent 
may be found in the speeches of Lord Chatham or Mr. Burke, in 
which the danger of executive usurpation in some way connected 
with the public money is pointed out, and which, if admitted as 
authority, will make Gen. Jackson appear in but very indifferent 
colours in the eyes of his fellow-citizens. But Gen. Jackson, 
although he can do what the King of England cannot do, is not 
the Kmg of England after all. He is our fellow-citizen, named to 
a high trust for a definite period, and with a defined authority. 
Common sense and common honesty would tell us, therefore, 
the expediency of looking into the conditions of the bargain 
under which he has accepted service, before we open the vials of 
our wrath upon his head. What says the constitution which we 
have compelled him to swear he will defend ? It says, in so many 
words, that he shall have the power of appointing all the officers 
of the government (with the consent and advice of the senate) 
with the exception of those whose appointment is provided for by 
the constitution itself, and of certain inferior officers, whose 
appointment Congress can, by law, place in the gift of either the 
President alone, of the heads of departments, or of the courts of 
law. It will be well for us to remember that "power," as it is 
used in the American constitution, is but another word for duty. 
As the constitution is silent on the subject of the appointment of 
a treasm'er of the United States, and the office is certamly a very 
important office, and not an inferior one, it follows, as a matter of 
course, that the keeping of the money cannot be placed beyond 
the supervision and authority of the executive. Congress can 
say that the money shall be kept where or in whatever manner it 
shall please ; it can put the trust in the hands of commissioners, 
and as many as it shall see fit to order ; but it cannot say who 
those commissioners shall be, for the simple reason that the con- 
stitution is silent as to the existence of any such power in Congi-ess, 
and has spoken as plainly as words can speak, to say that another 
shall possess it. English reasoning has so far prevailed, however, 
that we have been plamly told Congress can raise a committee of 



74 



its own body to keep the money, or it can put it in the custody 
of the vice-president and of the judges, who are independent of 
the President, and thus rescue us from tyranny. As for the 
judges, they have already spoken their miuds on this subject, and 
have told Congress, in the matter of the pensions, that they shall 
assume no duties that the constitution has not authorized. The 
vice-president may certainly be named as a commissioner for 
keeping the pubhc money, by the President and senate, holding 
the appointment at the pleasure of the former, but it is far beyond 
the power of Congress to give him a character as vice-president 
that is not bestowed already by the constitution.* It would be 
just as lawful for the executive to pretend to give new powers to 
Congress itself. The powers or duties of the several branches of 
government can only be varied by the highest legislation of the 
land — that of the constituency, convened in the representation 
prescribed by the national compact. Congress having no power 
to hold the money itself, can grant none to a committee of its own 
body. »^ It is exclusively a legislative corps, (as congress,) and it 
can exercise even that authority only, subject to the Hmitations 
mentioned in the constitution. 

Many who read this letter will feel disposed to exclaim against 
a state of things which places so much power in the hands of one 
man. I see far less apprehension of executive than of legislative 
usurpation in this country. Still, I am willing to admit that the 
President has too much authority for our form of government. * 
This is precisely one of the points in which imitation led the 
framers of the constitution astray. It would be better, for in- 
stance, if Congress had power to appoint a treasurer, as is practised 
in most of the state governments. But should Congress attempt 
to remedy the evil by simple parliamentary action, it will, as I 
humbly object, be carrying imitation to a still more dangerous 
extreme. Before we are Burked out of our constitutional ex- 
istence, let us at least make an attempt to try some of the expe- 
dients of our own system. ^ 



* The writer is here answering an argument used by one of his personal friends 
at a public meeting, and which has been sent to him in one of the newspapers of the 
day. 



75 



I have reserved the gmvest instances of dependance on foreign 
opinion to the last. 

Combinations exist to coerce the citizen.* The labourer is 
menaced ; he is discharged if he ^dll not vote in conformity with 
the will of his employer. This is striking at the root of the 
social compact — at the rights of the constituency itself* It is an 
accm'sed principle imported fi'om that land which, wliile I fully 
admit its greatness and its importance even to ourselves in many 
particulars, moral as well as physical, has probably, sent us quite 
as much evil as good. *^ 

The pretence that the employer has a right to coerce the vote 
of the employed, is neither more nor less than maintaining the 
doctrine of the representation of property in its worst, because in 
its most oppressive and fraudulent form. We have solemnly 
decreed that property shall not be represented ; even those states 
that still exact a money qualification in the voters, limit the de- 
mand to that of a qualification only ; we have protected the 
elector by the ballot, and vaiious other legal safeguards, and yet, 
so pernicious is the influence of that coimtiy from which we so 
largely imbibe om' opinions, that the heresy is openly maintained 
by perhaps a majority of those who are most in the habit of 
lookino^ abroad for rules of thous^ht. 

a C5 y 

The power to use another's vote is thoroughly English. Par- 
liament itself is no other than a collection of the rich, (or of their 
nominees) who command the electors themselves to give them 
authorit}\ The system is a pure mistification, and the day when 
it really gets root in this country may be looked upon as the com- 
mencement of a rule that is to subvert the institutions, and to 
place us where England is placed to-day, in the hands of the 
selfish, the mercenary, and the purchased, without any other relief 
from theii- usm'pations than such as is to be obtained from the 
thi'oes of the oppressed. We may get reform as England has 
got reform, by tumults and conflagrations, and threats of revolu- 
tion ; but we shall no longer obtain redress by the quiet, safe, and 
humane expedient of the ballot-boxes. ' ' 



* There will probably be a disposition to deny the fact. The writer only assents what 
he has heaid openly defended, and that which > it is in evidence, has been practised. 



76 



Another baneful effect of this foreign domination is the fact? 
that our best and least rewarded servants are rendered subject to 
an influence that is hostile to our rights, our national character, 
and our nearest interests. All who can recal the events of the 
last war, must remember with what a niggardly spirit applause 
was meeted out to those who shed their blood in the nation's 
defence, by the doctrinaires created by this habit of deferring to 
strangers. One legislature solemnly voted that our -soldiers and 
seamen were no better than so many mercenaries, fighting against 
God and his truth ! This was not merely party spirit ; party 
spirit exists in England and in France to an extent quite equalling 
any thing of the same nature that ever existed here, but the 
EngHsh and the French never refuse to honour their defenders. 
In this country, without pensions, orders, titles, or even military 
rank, we strip patriotism to the skin, leaving it little more than 
opinion for its reward, and, by the propensity of which there is 
complaint, we rob it, in part, of even this insufficient recompense. 

What can be more grievous than the case of a citizen who ven- 
tures upon the high seas, under the protection of his country's 
flag, and who is violently dragged, with insults and not un- 
frequently with robbery, into the service of another people, where 
he is made to risk both life and morals, to uphold a state of things 
that, rightly considered, is perhaps more antagonist to the system 
under which he was born than any other that can be named ? 
Such was impressment. We all know its practice ; and yet, to 
such an extent did mental dependance carry subserviency among 
us, that, I am not sure I might not say, a majority of our theo- 
rists as stoutly maintained the right of England to enter our 
ships, exacting from us the proofs of citizenship, and of exercising 
a power so insulting and so injurious, as if they were contending 
for the privileges of their liege lord. I know not what Mr. 
Burke might have said on this subject, but 1 happen to know the 
opinion of that upright, practical, and gallant old seaman. Lord 
Collingwood ; and it was simply that, were the case reversed, 
England herself would not submit to such a practice for an hour. 
If England wishes the services of her seamen, the simplest rules 
of justice prescribe that she should find means to keep them at 
home, and that she is not to enforce her own municipal regulations 



77 



by invading the sovereignty of foreign naitons. What renders 
the practice still more insulting, is the fact that, at the very time 
she practised this wrong on others, she drew into her own 
marines, both military and commercial, all the foreigners she 
could entice, in addition to those who were compelled to serve 
her. 

Do not deceive yourselves with the belief that these things are 
not seen and understood by others. There exists in this country 
an unaccountable delusion on the subject of the manner in which 
the American name and character are viewed in foreign 
countries. Diplomatic courtesy, the exaggerated expressions of 
European intercom'se, and the deceptions of the designing, ap- 
pear to have aided vanity in throwing a film before the eyes of 
too many of us, on this point. He who could msh the estimation 
of his countrymen to be lower than it actually is, must have a 
zest for humility that will one day procm-e canonization. Heaven 
knows how willingly I would tell you the contrary, if, in honesty, 
I could ; but, in order to tell you the truth, I am compelled to 
say that I beheve there is not another nation of Christendom 
whose people enjoy less positive favour than our own. We are 
not so generally hated as the English, it is true ; but I am far 
from being sure that the alternative is any better. I feel certain 
that one of the chief causes of this state of feeling, springs from 
the fact that we are so often untrue to ourselves. The impression 
that our infidelity makes on foreigners is painfully humiliating. 
I will close this disagreeable portion of my letter with one in- 
stance, taken from a hundred within my own experience, to show 
the truth of what is here said. 

In 1828, accident thi-ew me into the society of the present 
Chancellor of England, then Mr. Brougham, and I was honoured 
with an introduction. The interview took place in passing 
rapidly from one room to another. The usual terms of courtesy 
occupied us until we reached the place to which we were going, 
an interval of perhaps a minute, when this distinguished man 
turned short upon me, and abruptly inquired — " W^hat is the 
reason that so many of your countrymen desert the distinctive 
opinions of their country on coming to Europe ?" My answer 
was that " I hoped the fact was not so." Mt/ experience ivould 



78 



say it isP "To what class of men do you allude " To voui' 
foreign mmisters in particular." " Something TsiU depend on the 
character of the man ; will you name one He did, adduig, 
however, that he meant the remark as general. I could only 
say, that I supposed these gentlemen were willing to cany pru- 
dence to an excess, and that thev aimed at makino: themselves 
agi'eeable. " I understand you — you think they affected what 
they did not feel, for the sake of quiet." But he looked as if he 
knew better, and I much fear that I looked as if I knew better 
too. It is some consolation to know that Mr. Brougham did not 
Hve m the mtimacy of the Franklins, and Jays, and Jeffersons, of 
om' diplomacy. 

One of the most melancholy consequences of this habit of de- 
ferring to other nations, and to other systems, is the fact that it 
causes us to undervalue the high blessmgs we so pecuharly enjoy, 
to render us ungrateful towards God, and to make us unjust to 
our feUow-men, by throwing obstacles in theh progi'ess towards 
liberty. 

Tliere is an impatience of existing practical evils that causes 
many of the best-disposed men of this nation to overlook the real 
merits of the great question that is now agitating Chiistendom. 
No one '^^ill deny that we have om' own particular causes of com- 
plaint, and that a very gi'eat proportion of them are the offspring 
of democracy. Were it not for this we shoidd be perfect. All 
the e^il that is dependant on polity, and wliich is peculiarly our 
o'^vn, has tliis origin. It can have no other, for there is no mo- 
narch, nor aristocracy, (practically and pohtically considered) to 
produce a different. But let hun who has kno^ii both England 
and America ultimately, compare the disadvantages of the sys- 
tems, and if an honest and a sensible man, he wih tell you to be 
content ^ith your lot.^^ Ai'tful, mti'igumg demagogues get upper- 
most among us too often, beyond a doubt ; but where do they 
not ? The difference between a demagogue and a courtier, is 
not worth disputing about. We have the certainty of kno^™g 
that when such men do arrive at power, they are reduced to 
something very near the minimum of harm ; whereas, in other 
countries, the abuse is pretty sure to be at the expense of a very 
gi'eat majority. 



79 



The liberals of Europe (the term Whig is going fast out of 
fashion in England, where it means no more than a modified 
aristocrat, or a hberal of the last century), complain that Ame- 
ricans do them as much harm with their tongues, as the institu- 
tions of the country do good by their example. 

The disposition to respect the sayings and opinions of England, 
leads us to credit, with a dangerous facility, the audacious 
charges that the agents of her hostile institutions bring against 
our own. We appear, in the eyes of others, like a people who^do 
not more than half believe in the evidence of our own fact^and 
who are not sincere in our own professions. This is one of the 
reasons that Em-ope fancies we are living under a violent and 
rude democracy, which compels the wise and good to submit to 
its dictation, under the penalty of losing life and property. It 
is a common impression in Em'ope that this country is rent by 
civil wars and violence. 

In the Finance Controversy the truth was entu'ely on our side, 
as subsequent investigation as triumphantly established. The 
French government, or to speak more properly, its writers, an- 
nounced their intention to send to this country for documents to 
prove us in the wrong ; and it is understood at Paris that they 
have abandoned the design, under a conviction that the facts are 
against them. And yet, what portion of our doctrinaires espoused 
our cause, which was in effect the cause of freedom? At Paris, 
I believe much the larger portion of our countrymen were against 
us. Mr. Rives,* the minister was openly cited by the French 
premier, in the Chamber of Deputies, as being of that opinion ; 
the Secretary of Legation, I have it in proof, was also against 
us ; and it has been seen that Mr. Harris, the gentleman who was 
afterwards named to be Charge d'Affau'es, actually wi'ote a letter 
against us, which the juste milieu caused to be printed in an 
extra number of the " Revue Britannique." These gentlemen 
had a certain right to their convictions, certainly, but if their 



* It is due to this gentleman to say, that he affirms M. Perier quoted him wrong- 
fully ; but he was quoted, and his opinion was triumphantly cited against us in all 
the ministerial journals, and, to the best of my knowledge^ the statement is uncon- 
tradicted to this hour. 



80 



coui-se was in any manner influenced by a vAsh to propitiate the 
French government, thepubhc will judge between me and them. 
If they had political effect in view, the liigh and honourable 
condition of om* relations with France, just at this moment, must 
be exceedingly flattering to theii' diplomatic sagacit\\ 

The Prefect of the Loiret, om- principal antagonist, frequently 
referred to certain honourable Americans, (plusiem^s honor ahles 
Americains) who, he asserts, were too liberal to confoimd their 
duty to the trudi ^ith theu' dut^^ to the coimtiy, and who were 
much too wise to believe that national honour and national 
expenditiu'e were the same thing. These \\Titers, agreeablv to 
his account of the matter, carried then- liberahty so far as to 
furnish him with various documents to enable him to prove that 
we vvere very wi'ong. M. Saulnier had the indiscretion to 
publish one of these documents ; and I believe it was proved, to 
the satisfaction of every man who took the trouble to read the 
controversy, that this precious evidence was extracted fi'om a 
very worthless statistical table that is to be found in the Travels 
of Captain Basil HaU ! 

So far as I have been able to ascertain the fact, the opinion at 
home, among the doctrinaires, was also very generally against us 
in the Finance Question — much the greater part of these persons 
having jumped to theii' conclusions without even knowing the real 
points that were mooted. There must be something very un- 
sound in the state of public opinion, when so many of what are 
called the elite of a country, go off at half-cock against the effects 
of its ovm institutions. 

I turn from interests like these to myself again with humility 
and regi'et. But the purpose of this letter would not be accom- 
plished were I to bring it too abruptly to a close. Still I cannot 
force myself to the completion of its original design. I did 
intend, my countrymen, to expose to you the exultation and 
interested satisfaction with which other nations view tliis depend- 
ance on themselves ; the derision mingled with art, with which 
they play upon the weakness, and the deep design of destroying 
your gi'owmg power and prosperity that lies at the bottom of all. 
This is a duty that will probably fall to some pen better qualified 
for its performance. But I cannot take my leave of you, widiout 



81 



SO far trespassing on your good nature as to venture a kind word 
at parting. 

I came before you, as a writer, when the habit of looking to 
others for mental aliment most disqualified the public to receive 
a native author with favour. It has been said lately, that I owe 
the little success I met with at home to foreign approbation. 
This assertion is unjust to you. Accident first made me a writer, 
and the same accident gave a direction to the subject of my 
pen. Ashamed to have fallen into the track of imitation, I 
endeavoured to repair the wrong done to my own views, by pro- 
ducing a work that should be purely American, and of which 
love of country should be the theme. This work most of you 
received with a generous welcome, that might have satisfied any 
one that the heart of this great community is sound. It was 
only at a later day, when I was willing more obviously to sub- 
stitute American pinnciples for American things^ that I was first 
made to feel how far opinion, according to my poor judgment, 
still lags in the rear of facts. The American who wishes to 
illustrate and enforce the peculiar principles of his own country, 
by the agency of polite literature, will, for a long time to come, 
I fear, find that his constituency, as to all purposes of distinctive 
thought, is still too much under the influence of foreign theories 
to receive him with favour .^"^ It is under this conviction that I lay 
aside the pen. I am told that this step will be attributed to the 
language of the journals, and some of my friends are disposed to 
flatter me with the belief that the journals misrepresent the 
public sentiment. On this head, I can only say that, like others 
similarly situated, I must submit to any false inferences of this 
nature to which accident shall give birth. I am quite unconscious 
of giving any undue weight to the crudities of the daily press, 
and as to the press of this country in particular, a good 
portion of the hostility it has manifested to myself is so plainly 
stamped with its origin, that it never gave me any other un- 
easiness than that which belongs to the certainty that it must be 
backed by a strong public opinion, or men of this description 
would never have presumed to utter what they have. The in- 
formation on which I act is derived from sources entitled to more 
respect than the declamations of die press. 

G 



82 



I confess I have come to this decision with reluctance, for 
I had hoped to be useful in my generation, and to have yet done 
something which might have identified my name with those who 
are to come after me. But it has been ordered differently. I 
have never been very sanguine as to the immortality of what I 
have written, a very short period having always sufficed for my 
ambition : but I am not ashamed to avow, that I have felt a 
severe mortification that I am to break down on the question of 
distinctive American thought. Were it a matter of more than 
feeling, I trust I should be among the last to desert my post. But 
the democracy of this country is in every sense strong enough to 
protect itself. Here, the democrat is the conservative,^ and, thank 
God, he has something worth preserving. I believe he knows it, 
and that he will prove true to himself. I confess I have no gi'eat 
fears of om- modern aristocracy, which is wanting in more of 
chivalry than the accolade. 

Had I not been dragged before you rudely, thi^ough the per- 
severing hostility of one or two of the jomiials, this duty to 
myself would have been silently performed. With the exception 
of the extract of the letter published by Mr. Morse, this is the 
only instance, during the many years that we have stood to each 
other in the relations of author and reader, in which I have ever 
had occasion to trouble you, either du'ectly or indirectly, with 
any thmg personal to myself, and I trust to your kindness to 
excuse the step I have now taken. What has here been said, has 
been said frankly, and I hope with a suitable simplicity. So far 
as you have been indulgent to me — and no one feels its extent 
more than myself — I thank you with deep sincerity ; so far as I 
stand opposed to that class among you which forms the public of 
a writer, on points that, however much in error, I honestly 
believe to be of vital importance to the well being and dignity of 
the human race, I can only lament that we are separated by so 
wide a barrier as to render further communion, under our old 
relations, mutually unsatisfactory. 

J. FENIMORE-COOPER, 



POSTSCRIPT. 



This letter was already wTitten and sent to press, as mentioned 
in the introductory notice, when the condition of trade caused 
the bookseller to hesitate about publishing. The writer was 
also averse to appear before the public at a moment so gloomy, 
wdth matter that was necessarily of a personal natm*e. With 
this double motive, the pamphlet has been kept back till now. 

Hasty writing and hast\' printing (for the work was pushed 
while it was actually proceeding) have occasioned a few inad- 
vertences of style, most of which vdll be attributed by the 
reader to their true causes. There are, however, one or two 
of these mistakes that call for correction. " Grateful for the 
compliment," should be " gratified by the compliment " — page 11, 
line 29. 

By msinuating that the foreigners who have attacked the 
TNTiter in this country, were guilty of ingratitude to the latter, 
there is no intention of indentifvinfj the interests of the two ; 
the idea has been imperfectly expressed. It was meant to say that 
the writer has been thus assailed by these men, because he has j^re- 
sumed to defend the interests of his native land against those of 
their oicn. 

The delay in publishing induced the writer to destroy more 
than half of what he had originally wi'itten, in order to illusti'ate 
his position by events of more notorious and recent occurrence, 
such as those connected with the removal of the deposits. 

Since the letter has been printed, the \\Titer has received a 
commmiication from General Lafayette, on the subject of the 
Finance Conti'oversy. In alluding to Mr. Rives, there was a 
delicacy of saying more than was akeady public, but it is due 
to that gentleman now to say, that General Lafayette, in his 
name, has informed the French people that ^Ir. Rives did not 
say what M. Perier atti'ibuted to him. The ^^Titer was pri\y 
to the fact that Mr. Rives authorized General Lafayette, after 
some delay, to say this much in the Chambers, and that it was 
not done on accomit of the illness and subsequent doadi of 
M. Perier. But the point on wiiich Mr. Rives and the writer 

G 2 



84 



are at issue, is tliat the former owed it to the country not to 
permit any foreign minister to quote him against the action 
of its system, without promptly and effectually causing it to be 
contradicted. General Lafayette w^as merely authorized to do 
that which the wi'iter thinks Mr. Rives should have taken 
care was done with great promptitude. In consequence of the 
delay or indecision of Mr. Rives, this country presented the singular 
spectacle of its Secretary of State (Mr. Livingston) calling upon 
all the governors for facts to disprove the statements of the 
" Revue Britannique," in the interests of free institutions, while the 
American minister at Paris was openly quoted by the French 
premier, in the Chamber of Deputies, as giving an opinion 
directly on the other side of the question ! 

The tone of many Americans in Europe was often the subject 
of discussion between General Lafayette and the wi'iter. The 
latter knew that some of his countrymen were among the most 
bitter deriders of the venerable patriot when in reverses, and 
that most of these men crowded about him in the hour of his 
triumph, in a way even to exclude his true friends. While this 
country has manifested, at home, its attachment to the venerable 
patriot, it has not always respected his feelings, or observed that 
delicacy which was due to his emment and disinterested services. 
The manner in which he has been spoken of in the memoirs 
of some of his revolutionary contemporaries might have been 
spared, for, while it could do no good, it has furnished his 
enemies with materials of attack. There are two sides to every 
question. The opinion of Mr. Gouverneur Morris is known, 
and it may be well now to hear what can be said in answer. 
The following is an extract from General Lafayette's last letter 
to the writer. It is scarcely necessary to say that the allusion is 
to Mr. Morris : — 

" I have read the memoirs of a distinguished statesman, to 
whose memory I am bound by the seal of an early friendship, and an 
affectionate gratitude for the great services he rendered in the most 
dangerous times to my wife and children ; yet I cannot deny that 
his communications with the royal family, representing me as an 
ultra-democrat and republican, even for the meridian of the 
United States, were among the numerous causes which en- 
couraged them in their opposition to my advice and to the side of 



85 



public opinion. For my part, I have, in the course of my long 
life, ever experienced that distance, instead of relaxing, does 
enliven and brace my sentiments of American pride." 

It is time that this country took more care that its public 
agents abroad do not at least misrepresent public opinion at home. 
Neutrality is a duty, but it is not neutrality to compromise a prin- 
ciple when there is a just occasion to speak; nor is it neutrality 
for an agent of this country to be howling against reform," as 
the conduct of one was described to the writer by a distinguished 
English liberal — not a Whig. This country owes it to itself to strip 
the tinsel from the coats of its foreign agents, and to send them 
abroad in the attire they use at home. Even the half-civilized 
Turk has too much dignity and self-respect to change his tm^ban 
for a hat, when he goes to the Tuilleries or St. James's, and why 
should we for ever bend to the habits of other people ? We lose 
instead of gaining respect by the course, and, in losing respect, we 
lose influence. K tailor at Paris once showed the v.riter, with a 
sneer, a coat he had been making for an American agent, with 
a star as large as the evening planet on each breast, wrought in 
gold thread ! After all, it was but a pitiful imitation of the 
Toison d'Or and St. Esprit, Simplicity is as much the charac- 
teristic of a (]^entleman as mao-nificence — in the name of Heaven 
let us have one or the other. 

It v/as the original intention of the witer to expose the manner 
in which the British aristocratic journals, however much opposed 
to each other on certain points, rally to support their distinctive 
privileges and national interests. The " Quarterly" and " Edin- 
burgh" usually mix like oil and vinegar, but the latter was selected 
to asssail the writer, because it was believed it passed as a more 
liberal work in this country. In England a Tory means an 
oligarchist ; a Whig is merely an aristocrat ; a Liberal is one who 
wishes rational feeling, founded on the base of the people ; and a 
Radical is onewho is for over turning every thing and beginning de 
novo. The " Edinburgh Review" is strictly whig, and it has been 
contending for taking away the close boroughs from my Lords 
A. B. and C, in order to make a new distribution of power 
among the few — not the few in its sense, for this would bo 
oligarchical; but the few in our sense, which is aristocratical. 
The writer had selected fom' or five cases of the exceeding igno- 



86 



ranee of the Edinburgh," m order to show with what instruction 
it discussed American subjects, but his limits have forced the 
matter out. There is one case, however, to which he could wish 
to say a word. Mr. Rush, in his late work on England, observes 
that men of different parties meet sociably in society, appearing 
for the moment to forget their political antipathies. In review- 
ing this book the critic asks, with a sneer, and in reference to this 
remark of Mr. Rush, if Mr. Cooper remembers his answer when 
he was told that Pitt and Fox never met in private life. The 
writer does not remember his answer, nor does he remember ever 
to have been before told the circumstance in question. As he is 
told it now, however, he will make an answer — viz., " That the 
fact contradicts the statement of Mr. Rush, and that the reviewer 
does not appear to have had sufficient sagacity to see it." 

On re-examining the Constitution, the writer perceives that the 
power of each house to keep a separate journal is given rather 
in the character of an injunction than in that of a concession. Of 
course he has used the fact improperly as an illustration of his 
argument, which it does not sustain, while, at the same time, it 
does not oppose it. 

The writer has succeeded in finding the paragraph from the 
pen of Mr. Hazlitt, which is alluded to in page 43. It is given 
below : — 

" There are two things I admire in Sir Walter — his capacity 
and his simplicity ; which indeed I am apt to think are much 
the same. The more ideas a man has of other things, the less 
he is taken up with the idea of himself. Every one gives the 
same account of the author of Waverley in this respect. When 
he was in Paris, and went to Galigniani's, he sat down in an 
outer room to look at some book he wanted to see : none of the 
clerks had the least suspicion who it was. When it was found 
out, the place was in a commotion. Cooper, the American, was 
in Paris at the same time : his looks and manners seemed to an- 
nounce a much greater man. He strutted through the streets 
with a very consequential air ; and in company held up his head, 
screwed up his features, and placed himself on a sort of pedestal 
to be observed and admired, as if he never relaxed in the as- 
sumption, nor wislied it to be forgotten by others, that he was the 
American Walter Scott." 



NOTES. 



A. 

Since my arrival from Switzerland, I have taken no particular pains to inves- 
tigate the affair of the critique on the " Bravo," that appeared in the New- York 
American," though one or two circumstances have occurred to corroborate what 
I never doubted, that it was a translation of one of the attacks of the Juste 
Milieu, a little altered to adapt it to the American reader, for, as you may 
remember, it professes to come from an American. The " Journal des Debats," 
the oracle of the party of the Doctrinaires, published, some time before, the 
original, allowing for the translation and the necessary alterations, as I under- 
stand. This fact alone would put the question of its origin at rest, were there 
not sufficient internal evidence to prove it, without referring to the stupid 
blunder of quoting the Paris edition of the work ! I take the report you men- 
tion, of this critique having been written by " an obscure clerk in a counting- 
house," to be a subterfuge. [The following are the words of Mr. Morse : — I 
gave you the name of the writer (of the critique) in Paris, on the authority of 

; since I have been at home, it has been declared to me that the review 

was written here by an obscure clerk in a counting-house, and was cited 

to me as having assured my informant of the fact." It will be seen that this 
attributing of the article to an obscure person did not come from either Mr. 
Morse or myself, neither of whom believed the story, but actually from the 

other side. , the person alluded to by Mr. Morse, is a personal and 

political friend of the editor of the " American," and if Cassio dislikes this 
description of his employments, he must reserve his spleen for those who 
originated it.] It might have been forwarded to the " American" through such 
a channel, or it might have been translated by such a pen, for the work is done 
in so bungling a manner, that, as you will recollect, I detected its French origin 
before twenty lines were read. I am not disposed to deny the obscurity of the 
translator. When work of this description is done, it is usually committed to 
understrappers. Depend on it, however, that it was translated at Paris, clerk or 
no clerk. The " Bravo" is certainly no very flattering picture for the upstart 
aristocrats of the new regimes, and nothing is more natural than their desire to 
undervalue the book ; but the facility betrayed by our own journals, in an affair 
of this nature, is a source of deep mortification to every American of right feeling. 
I ought to have said, there is a gentleman now at Paris, who (I am told) says he 
was present when one of the editors of the " American" wrote the article. You 
may take this statement as the companion to the report of the agency of the 
" obscure clerk ;" both stories cannot be true, since they contradict each other. 

I have no doubt that Mr. discovered the truth, and that is tlie 

true author of the article, with, perhaps, tlie exception of the alterations which 

exist in the translation. This is a common hack writer — was then in the 

employment of the " Journal des Debats," and would have written an eulogium 
on the " Bravo," or any thing else, the next day, for a hundred francs. It is 
unnecessary to say any thing to you toucliing the venality of tlic French and 



88 



English reviews. As a general rule, nothing appears in either without favour or 
malice. 

You have not alluded to the attack on me, contained in the Commerciai 
Advertiser" of Feb. 1st last, I consider this article much more worthy of atten- 
tion than the pitiful affair of the translation of Mr. 's criticism on the 

" Bravo." I think, were the truth known, that, with the exception of the article 
on the " Heidenmauer," translated from the " Revue Encyclopedique," and which 
has looseness enough to contain its own refutation, this is purely of American 
origin. " We clearly perceive," says the reviewer, " that Cooper has long 
ceased to dwell in America. It awakens no more recollections in his soul." 
Here is the 'ercles vein with a vengeance ! Now, just twenty-three lines lower 
down, in the column of the " Commercial," this grinder of ideas adds — 
" Cooper does not speak of a site. Sec. without stopping to say, ' Oh, this is 
much better in America,' &c. &,c. It is easy to see that he must think of his own 
country to excite himself, and to arrive at the end of his book." All this stuff is 
well enough for the ordinary French reader, who is not usually a very great 
stickler for facts, or consistency. But why is it translated for the " Conmier- 
cial ?" I think I can tell you. 

The " Commercial" avows that the review is sent by a " correspondent." It 
even gives some of the opinions, and, luckily, some of the language, too, of this 
correspondent. Here is what he says of me ; — " He has constitided himself the 
literari/ antagonist of the monarchy, aristocracy, and feudality of all Europe, 
and particularly of England, to, at, and for which last country he especially 
writes." I have italicised the cloven feet. To, at, and for !" I know but one 
potentate capable of parading these propositions. Had he been as skilful in 
enumerating the cost of government, in the Finance Discussion, these innocent 
little parts of speech would never have been dragged forth so unmercifully. Let 
us look at him again. Lower down he says, " He is an American (not a French) 
Voltaire, at Paris (not Fernay)." Here is pith for you ! By these few words 
we learn that Voltaire was a Frenchman, and that I am a Yankee ; that one 
lived at Fernay, and the other at Paris. We had at Cooperstown, some thirty 
or forty years ago, a political writer who put his parentheses into one another, 
like spare pill-boxes, but he wanted altogether the lucid arrangement of the cor- 
respondent of the " Commercial !" 

The Jesuitism of this digested attack in the " Commercial" is worthy of 
notice. First I am shown up by the Theban of the French review ; then comes 
an article against Mrs. Trollope to prove the impartiality of the periodical 
quoted, — afterwards the editor says, in his own person, though I strongly sus- 
pect he uses even the language of his " correspondent" — " We regret the exist- 
ence of unfriendly feelings to us among the French. France — our early friend — 
has always been popular in America, through and with all her faults," &c. 
Again — " We believe now, that even the F'rench government-party in France 
would have no inclination to attack us, if Americans abroad had pursued the 
same reserve in politics lohich ive enforce upon Europeans here." All this is 
meant for me, and it all comes from the fact that I gave my testimony in favour 
of General Lafayette, when it suited the French government to affirm, in the 
face of Europe, that all our old friend had been saying for forty years, concern- 
ing the effect of our institutions, was false ; and that, in fact, we paid more 
taxes than the French. 

I do not believe that the editor of the " Commercial," who passed ten years 
of his life in calling the French any thing but gentlemen, wrote the words — 
" France has always been popular in America," &c. Rely on it, they are cal- 
culated ; and come from his "correspondent." The " through and ivith" savour 
of the " to, at, and for ;" nothing but a rear-guard to the main body. " The 
unfriendly feeling of the I'rend)," means of the French government-party, for 
the French, as a nation, arc in a coiTifortable state of indifference as respects 



89 



America and all it contains. The government hatred has been excited by the 
dread of a republic, which would, of course, be death to itself. The same 
reserve in politics we enforce from Europeans A residence in America about 
as long as mine has been in France entitles the stranger to become a citizen. It 
is notorious, that foreigners are constantly employed about the American press, 
as Reporters in Congress, and in a variety of ways that act on public opinion. 
When I left New- York a paper was published in the city that was openly called 
the " Albion," and whose colour was decidedly English. Now, we will suppose 
that the " Globe," or any other government paper with us, should pretend 
to prove that England had a debt of thrice its real amount, and that the 
Englishman pays three times the taxes he does, will any man affirm that this 
" Albion" would hesitate about showing the truth, let the motive for the mis- 
representation be what it might ; or that public opinion in America would inflict 
a punishment for its so doing ? Suppose an American had served England as 
Lafayette has served us, and that the motive was to crush this American, and 
you have a case completely parallel to my interference with the Finance Discus- 
sion. But to render the remark of the " Commercial" still more flagrant, one of 
the proprietors and editors of that very paper is, or was quite lately, an English- 
man ! I have seen some very extraordinary and some impudent transactions in 
my time, but I can recal none more flagrant than this of putting an American 
on his trial, at the bar of public opinion, and that, too, in his own country, for 
having told the truth in defence of General Lafayette, at a great pecuniary loss 
to himself, and without the smallest possibility of personal advantage. Every 
hour convinces me, more and more, that we are a nation in name only, let Mr. 
Webster and Mr. Calhoun say what they please about it. 

As respects the Finance Discussion, it is my intention, however, to publish its 
details, not for any interest I have in it personally, but from a wish to set the 
history of the part played by the agents of our government in foreign countries 
generally before the public. Nothing but publicity is needed to extort the cor- 
rective. The subject grows in my hands, and may make a small volume. If I 
help to produce a change in the tone of the agent abroad, I shall not have lived 
entirely for nothing. Europe will gain in rights, and we shall gain in character. 
Heaven knows how much it is wanted, even for the simplest purposes of true 
policy. We have a faii: specimen of the effect of the nose-of-wax system, by 
the recent course of the French government. Here is a solemn treaty, duly rati- 
fied, to pay a certain sum on a certain day. Our bill is protested, under the 
pretence that there has been no appropriation. Now, the Chambers have been in 
session near nine months since the ratifications were exchanged, and not a word 
has been said by the ministry on the subject. Would England, or Austria, or 
Russia, or Prussia, or even poor little Sardinia, be treated so cavalierly ? 

We flatter and play the courtier, and act on the " all-things-to-all-men" prin- 
ciple, when we should assume the frank attitude of the republicanism we pro- 
fess, ask only what is right, and take nothing less. I may finish the little work 
over which we used to laugh so much a year since, but it has lain ten months 
untouched. 

The editor of the " Commercial" has a naive avowal " that he might have 
hesitated to admit this attack, but for the knowledge that Mr. Cooper prefers the 
censure to the praise of the daily press." If I have this humour, it must be 
one of those tastes which are formed by habit. Were I to answer the editor, it 
would be in the words of the French saying — " II y a de la Rochefaucauld et 
de la Rochefaucauld." 

How much longer America means to tolerate this slavish dependance on 
foreign opinion, without which editors would not dream of extracting remarks on 
ourselves from hostile journals, you are in a situation to know better than I. 
All the familiar thoughts and illustrations of English literature are in direct and 
dangerous opposition to our own system, and yet we are unwilling to support a 



90 



writer in the promulgation of those that are in harmony with our profession, and 
which I think are abstractly true. The English in particular see and profit by 
this weakness. It is manifestly their interest to do our thinking if possible, that 
they may do other things for us that are more lucrative ; and they are not scru- 
pulous about the means employed to effect this object. They systematically 
attack and undervalue every man they believe independent of their influence, and 
extol those to the skies who will do their work. When all is done, they deride 
us for our folly, despise their instruments heartily, and respect those most who 
most respect themselves. John Bull, " through and with'' all his faults, is at 
least manly, and has a great contempt for a " dough face." 

This letter was written to the very person who had sent me the name of the 
writer of Cassio, who knew that I had taken no steps to inquire into the affair 
previously to going to Switzerland, and who is now told that I had taken none 
since my return. A good deal of the letter is not published. 



B. 

Extract from the " Commercial Advertiser.^' 

Revue Encyclopedique. — We have received the October number of the 
" Revue Encyclopedique." On a hasty glance at its contents, we discover two 
articles, which it may be interesting to our readers to notice. 

The first is a brief notice of Cooper's " Heidenmauer," in which the French 
reviewer treats this last work of " our distinguished countryman," with no small 
degree of severity, as will be seen : — 

We clearly perceive (says the Reviewer), that Cooper has long ceased to dwell 
in America. It awakens no more recollections in his soul. It calls up no more 
poetical images — no more simple and original creations — no more descriptions so 
picturesque, so fresh, so attractive. He has become a quiet citizen, who no more 
quits the land. He has forgotten that other world, which he has made us so 
much love, the Sea— the sea, with its infinite variety in infinite uniformity — the 
sea, with the sailor's faith and boldness — the sea, with all the poetry of sublime 
nature united to the genius of man. It is as melancholy a thing as death, to see 
this powerful inspiration depart — or rather exhaust itself upon itself. Walter 
Scott is no more, and Cooper also is no more, for we have known him only by 
his genius, and his genius is dead." 

After a brief account of the work, in which the writer acknowledges that there 
is an occasional brilliancy, he concludes thus : — 

" I do not wish to analyze this romance, which every one has read. All must 
have been impatient of the often-fatiguing prolixity of the descriptions, and of 
the singular prejudices of Cooper, which make him^ on each page, while recount- 
ing the events of the sixteenth century, establish a parallel between the manners, 
belief, and political institutions of America and of Europe. Cooper docs not 
speak of a site — he does not bring one of his heroes on the scene, or describe the 
spirit of the epoch, without stopping to say — ' Oh! this is much better in America 
— 7/ou see nothing like this there.' — It is easy to see that he is not interested in his 
subject, and that he must think of his own country to excite himself, and to arrive 
at the end of his book.'' 

" I know not, indeed, why there is not in these men of genius a secret and 
benevolent voice, to bid them to cease, and tell them that they have done enough 
for glory, and that they must not sully beautiful and ravishing remembrances by 
the weakness of an exhausted talent, wliich has given all it could give to tlie 
world." 

" I wish I had not read any of the Romances of Scott after the ^ Fair Maid of 
l*crth,' nor any of Cooper's since his ' Puritan of America.' " 



91 



" I hope, as to Cooper, that this may be the last work I shall read, and espe- 
cially I wish it may be the last which I shall have to review." 

By the " Puritan of America," we presume, is meant the " Wept of the Wishtoyi- 
Wish," and we rejoice to believe that the most ridiculous of names has not 
travelled abroad. 

A correspondent, whose letter accompanies the review, thinks the Frenchman 
has not hit upon the true cause of Cooper's incessant references to politics in his 
late works. " He has constituted himself," says our friend, " the literary anta- 
gonist of the monarchy, aristocracy, and feudality of all Europe, and particu- 
larly of England, to, at, and for which last country he especially writes. He is 
an American (not a French) Voltaire, at Paris, (not Fernay,) and is undermining 
thrones and principalities, and changing the destinies of Europe. After all, 
perhaps the interests of mankind would not materially suffer, and his readers 
would be better pleased, if he would leave off the high-heeled buskin, and 
become the mere good-tempered novelist once more." This vein of censure is 
rather severe, and we should have declined its insertion were it not for the know- 
ledge of the fact that Mr. Cooper prefers the censure to the praise of the news- 
paper press. Of this peculiarity of his taste he has taken care to inform us, in 
the preface to the " Heidenmauer," in which he says, in so many words : — " Each 
hour, as life advances, am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the im- 
mortality conferred by a newspaper !" 

The second article of this review, to which we alluded, is on " The United 
States of America." It is an amiable and sensible article, vindicating us from 
the Tory calumnies of England, and dispassionately commenting on our present 
political difficulties. 

After some severe remarks on the English travellers in America, the writer 
says, " It is melancholy — it is humiliating to observe that this vile use of calumny, 
and of paltry spite towards America, which characterizes the sentiments of a 
certain party in England, has been imported among us ; and that France, whose 
glory it is that she contributed to free America from the English yoke, has turned 
round, and joined her old enemies to condemn the social grossness of the 
Americans. But is it not to the mother country that they owe, in a great mea- 
sure, these coarseness of manners ? 

"All the sins which they can accumulate against that detested word — 
Republic — are lavished en masse, without rhyme or reason, on North America; 
and all the vices and defects, with which they reproach her, are ascribed, without 
exception, to the equality which reigns there, and to the absence of an hereditary 
sovereign. 

" This blind and unreasonable argument we can conceive of and even respect 
in the mouth of an English Tory, for with him loyalty and royalism form 
a species of religion. The superannuated sentiment of personal attachment to a 
royal race, which formerly prevailed universally in Europe, exists still in 
England, while it is extinct with us. If we have royalists, it is from reason and 
reflection that they are so : if they maintain royalty, it is from the idea of its 
necessity or its utility. The right divine is an empty word to them — a farce at 
best, good only for the peasants of La Vendee. The belief in the right divine 
naturally carries an English Tory to condemn the name and existence of a 
republic, wherever he finds them, whether in history or in existence. But for our 
royalists from utility to launch the same anathemas, and affect the same disgust, 
is intolerable — it is acting fanaticism without the excuse of faith. 

" This war of the Tory critics, and of our ^ juste milieu,^ against America is 
carried on, not so much by a regular attack on the political institutions of the 
republic, as by a satire on the manners of the people. As it is no longer possible 
to deny that the Americans are well and cheaply governed, they undertake 
to prove that at least they are not a fashionable ]ieople — a proposition which is 
not difficult to demonstrate. But, granting that the want of elegance is a crime 



92 



ill a young nation, can they seriously blame the Americans for it? Would 
America have shunned this defect, by remaining Tory, or by continuing to be 
governed by English viceroys for the last fifty years ? If the States of North 
America had maintained the monarchy, would their manners have been softened ? 
Would they have been less provincial, or less coarse? or rather, w^ould not 
an English novelist a-ln-mode, like Mrs. Trollope, have found much richer 
materials for caricature in the burlesque affectations of the petty courts of their 
English viceroys." 

" We are Americans enough to deny the very defect, which our friendly 
advocate would palliate, and verily believe that our countrymen are not compara- 
tively deficient in elegance, if oar English critics, who hold up to us the models 
of refinement — if Captain Hall and Mistress Trollope are, in their individual 
persons, 'the great sublime they draw.' But we sincerely regret the existence of 
unfriendly feelings to us among the French. France — our early friend — has been 
always popular in America, through and icith all her faults, and we believed our 
feelings were reciprocated . Even the royalists, from conviction and feeling, have 
spoken well of us, and we remember at this moment an eulogium upon America, 
pronounced in the Chamber of Deputies by Hyde de Neuville, the amiable minister 
once resident among vis — himself an ultra-royalist. And we believe noio, that even 
the government party in France would have no inclination to attack us, if 
Americans abroad had pursued the same reserve in politics which we eriforce upon 
Europeans here^ 



C. 

I Extract from the " New York Coimnercial Advertiser*' of April 1834. 

"During the whole contest (the election) it was both juelancholy and amusing 
to see the immense number of foreigners who were driving up every moment to 
the marine court to get out certificates of naturalization. Almost every five 
minutes an omnibus came up filled with them. Nine-tenths of them were of the 
lowest class, and many not long enough in the country to wear out the clothes 
they brought on their backs. They went to the conxi foreigners in every sense 
of the ivord, altogether ignorant of the institutions of the country, and of almost 
every thing else; but the moment they ejiter — hoc presto, they are instantly 
changed, and in five minutes they come out intelligent American citizens, burn- 
ing with love of country and patriotism, afid are sent off" to the polls to support 
the Constitution, and break jnen's heads.'^ 

Now this is the editor who coolly tells his readers that France would not have 
vituperated this country, had certain Americans at Paris observed " the same 
reserve in politics which we enforce upon foreigners here !" 



D. 

Extracts from the Constitution. 
ARTICLE \.— Sections. 

1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of 
its own members ; and a majority of eacli shall constitute a quorum to do 
business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be 
authorized to compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under 
such penalties as each house may provide. 

2. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members 
for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a 
member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time 



93 



publish the same, excepting such parts as in their (its) judgment require secrecy ; 
and the yeas and nays of the members of either house, on any question, shall, at 
the desire of one-fifth present, be entered on the journal. 

4. This clause relates to adjournments, and is entirely prohibitory. 

The foregoing clauses contain all the powers to act separately that are conceded 
to each house, and which are common to both. The clauses that follow contain 
all the powers for each house to act separately that are not common to both : — 

ARTICLE 1.— Section 2. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other offic^^'^? 
and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Section 3. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, (the Vice-President being its 
Speaker, or President,) and also a President pro tejiipore, in the absence of the 
Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United 
States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments, &c. (The 
rest of the clause prescribes the forms of such trials.) 

The Senate has the power to approve of nominations and treaties, the Pre- 
sident commissioning and ratifying. It has the exclusive right to count the votes 
of the electors, and to declare the result. The House of Representatives has 
power, in the event of there being no election by the colleges, to choose a Pre- 
sident in a prescribed manner. 

In addition to these cases of separate power, the members of the two houses 
have a few personal privileges, which do not, however, at all bear upon the point 
at issue. The House of Representatives has also the right to originate all bills 
for raising revenue. 

The following are the powers of the two Houses acting conjointly : — 

ARTICLE 1.— Sections. 
The Congress shall have power — 

1 . To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises ; to pay the debts and 
provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States ; but all 
duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States — 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States — 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, 
and with the Indian tribes — 

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the sub- 
ject of bankruptcies throughout the United States — 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the 
standard of weights and measures — 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current 
coin of the United States — 

7. To establish post offices and post roads — 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited 
times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and 
discoveries — 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court : To define and punish 
piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the laws of 
nations — 

10. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules con- 
cerning captures on land and water — 



94 



11. To raise and support aniiies; but no appropriation of money to that use 
shall be for a longer term than two years — 

12. To provide and maintain a navy — 

13. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
forces — 

14. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions — 

15. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United 
States, resernng to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the 
authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress — 

16. To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district 
(not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the 
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and 
to exercise like authority over all places purchased, by the consent of the legis- 
lature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, 
arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings — and, 

17. To make all laws which shall be necessarj' and proper for carrj^ing into 
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. 

In addition to these powers. Congress, by ob%-ious implication, can give 
authority to the several states to keep troops and raise revenue ; it can determine 
the time of choosing the electors of President ; it can put the appointments of cer- 
tain inferior officers of the government in the President alone, in the heads of 
departments, or in the courts of law; it can declare the punishment of treason, 
under definite limitations ; it can propose amendments to the Constitution; it can 
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territor}^ or 
other property belonging to the United States ; it can admit new states into the 
Union ; it can make appropriations of all moneys to be expended for the public 
service ; it can make regulations for the choosing of its ovm. bodies, with certain 
restrictions ; it can name the day of its o^to assembling ; it can give permission to 
the public agents to accept of titles, presents, offices, &c., firom foreign govern- 
ments ; it has power to name the officer who shall act as President in a certain 
contingency; and it has power to name the places where the courts for tlie 
trials for certain crimes shall be held. 



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